Bound
by pennytree
Summary: Witches always float, except in one Virginia town, where Sheila Bennett, dismayed to find her granddaughter starting to sink into a world of vampires, takes desperate measures to protect her own. Meanwhile, the Parker family abomination starts questioning his sanity, fifteen years into his stint in the prison world. Bonnie, Kai-main. Caroline, Elena, Stefan, Matt-supporting.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.**

 **A/N:** New story, as promised. This one will will probably get weekly or biweekly updates until the Charade is done. I've been wanting to do a TVD Redux where Bonnie gets to live a life outside of her friends, and where Kai gets a chance, period. Enjoy. :)

 **PROLOGUE**

 _Mystic Falls, 2009_

It arrived in a small white envelope, thin and inconspicuous, almost lost amidst piles of junk mail. But Sheila's eyes zeroed in on the handwriting, the elegant, flowing thin script.

She knew the sender, from years past. They had worked together, solving the mystery of a massacre which had ultimately led to the other woman's death, twenty years ago. But Sheila wasn't surprised to receive a letter now. The woman had belonged to one of the most secretive covens around, their collective fingers dabbling in prophecies and predictions spanning this earth and others. Who knew what chess pieces her coven had moved into place, years before her death?

This letter would be bad news, without question.

"Grams?" came the bubbly voice behind her. "Your tea's ready. I made a new flavor for you. Come on!"

Sheila pasted a small smile on her face and shoved her misgivings away, pocketing the letter, as she turned to face her granddaughter.

"Let's see, child. Last time, I swear you brewed me a cup of anti-freeze."

Bonnie's laugh drifted happily in the air.

-oOoOo-

 _Prison World_

In this empty hellhole that had been his home for fifteen years, there were many things Kai got around to doing.

Coming back home to Portland to roam the city, the suburbs, the fields of his family's estate-that was one of them. Sometimes it was just to see the familiar, and indulge his curiosity about the neighbors, picking through their secrets by rummaging inside closets and lockboxes that were denied to him, in the real world. Once in a while, he targeted coven homes, except when he stocked up on knowledge there, he was pretty sure one day it would prove useful. Mr. Mcallister from two houses away hiding a box of rare coins in his cellar was different, after all, from his father's oldest friend and one of the leading coven seniors stashing contraband artifacts in a secret compartment in his study.

Still other times, Kai went back to his family's house to just wander there, reliving childhood memories that culminated on a pleasant spring night.

He still remembered the soft breeze carrying the scent of blooming flowers and dead bodies, when it was all over.

He wasn't sure anymore, if that had been the best idea. Aside from getting caught and punished, he'd arrived at the conclusion that he could have been a tiny bit smarter, handling his rage. But, the massacre he enacted on his siblings so long ago still gave him nothing more than a case of heartburn and slight pause to consider life's ironies.

The people whose good opinion he'd once longed for, his own blood, reduced to begging for him to spare their measly lives.

Never mind that he couldn't float a feather on his own account-what signified was his hands. He was good with his hands, in every way that mattered in a family of self-important witches and warlocks with an over-reliance on magic and under utilization of physical prowess. Aside from knowing as well as anyone else the history of ancient and modern-day covens, and memorizing catalogues of grimoire spells, little magic-leeching Malachai also happened to pick up quite a few things about carpentry, and cooking, and electrical. All dangerous things in their own right, turned out, when one was inventive to boot. As some of his family had discovered, to their bad luck, that one evening in May.

Now, he periodically went home to hone his skills. It was here he could tool around the old shed, or think up some new recipes, or build new tree houses. There was also a lot of land to use as a makeshift hangar, once he'd picked up piloting a plane. In all, wasn't much that he couldn't do once he put his mind to it. He had different stomping grounds to run to, where he could do the same things-but sometimes, there was just no place like home.

Especially lately, with weird shit happening.

In the past couple months-he could be wrong, it could easily be half a year-the erratic storms and occasional missed eclipses have tugged on his awareness. He'd sat traveling the continents trying to figure out if he was at last, losing his final, tepid grip on sanity as he watched all the pretty colors in the sky. Then he'd had a thought that the Gemini Coven and dear old dad were finally trying to wipe his existence from the prison world, if not the prison world itself.

He sat on the topmost trunk of the weeping willow tree, his face turned upward. His clothes were wet from walking outside in the storm earlier, and he thought lightning might have singed him a little here and there. But now, in the quiet after the storm, instead of the usual clear starry night sky that had hung overhead him in his decade and a half of imprisonment, an impossibly large blood moon beckoned to him. Beautiful, eerie, almost close enough to touch, it presented him with a sudden bright and gleaming hope.

Maybe soon, he'd have his freedom.

And his revenge.

-oOoOo-

"...something fundamentally off about me," lamented her blonde friend, her tousled curls haphazardly bouncing with her lolling head, before she dropped her head into her hands. "Like I'm the total opposite of perfect Elena."

Going to the Grill for a proper meal to stave off the effects of five too many beers had been a good idea, or so Bonnie had first thought. Caroline definitely needed to chill, somewhere without Elena and Stefan around, but now that they were sitting there, miles away from the party they had just left, Bonnie saw her mistake. People trickled in regularly, Friday night giving the place a feeling of hustle and bustle instead of its usual sleepy southern diner feel. It didn't matter, though. The Real Madrid soccer club could walk in now, and Caroline would miss all that hotness, in favor of tirading against the unfairness of constantly being in Elena Gilbert's shadow.

Bonnie played with her utensils, listening to several more minutes of moping, adding in hums of sympathy and appropriately understanding expressions-most of them she meant, really-then watched Caroline's head droop lower. Had she fallen asleep?

She eyed the exit consideringly.

"Go ahead..." Caroline said. "I'll be fine. I can walk home by myself. I mean, probably trip on my face, but them's the breaks, right?"

Bonnie gave into a tiny moment of irritation. She found Matt in the distance, then said to her friend, "I have to go. Grams is waiting on me."

"You've been spending a lot of time with her," Caroline muttered. "Your Dad out of town again?"

She shrugged. What else was new?

"Go, Bonnie," and this time, Caroline managed a smile. "She might empty the liquor cabinet again. Can't have that."

Bonnie pursed her mouth, feigning disapproval, before she thought of it, then nodded, and made her way towards the exit.

"Hey, Matt," she said. He nodded to her, and she indicated Caroline behind them. "Keep an eye on her til she gets home?"

"Sure."

The walk back to her grandmother's cottage was short, the quaint neighborhood she lived in a mere five blocks from the Grill. Her boots clattered along cobblestone sidewalks and sweeping trees on quiet streets, most of the lights inside the homes off, the neighborhood having bid good-night already. Most of the residents on her grandmother's street were older, or couples with children, tucking in early. Bonnie enjoyed the atmosphere a few blocks over, the area more lively, the residents more bohemian and giving the streets a livelier feel. But she could see why Grams liked the quiet. Not that she was herself, though.

When she got to the cottage, the porch lights were blazing accusingly at Bonnie. Inside was just as bright.

"Where have you been, child?" her grandmother asked, her television loud in the background, an explosion causing the entire living room to rumble with the effects of surround sound. Bonnie moved further inside, dropping her bag and plopping onto the couch, her eyes on the screen as Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law's bruised, battered faces filled it.

 _Sherlock Holmes_ , one of her favorite movies that year. The tray on the edge of the coffee table held a bowl of cheddar popcorn and a KitKat bar.

"Grams," she murmured. "I'm sorry."

Her grandmother's brows slashed down, but Bonnie could tell she wasn't really hurt by the twinkle in her eyes. Or maybe that was the liquor. "I made some beef roast earlier, too."

"Saved me some?"

"No," the older woman huffed, then smiled reluctantly. "Make a plate, before I change my mind."

Bonnie shot up, starving suddenly, and made a beeline for the kitchen. Minutes later, tucked into a plate of a home cooked meal, she sighed happily.

"Where'd you go anyway?" asked Grams, sipping wine.

"How many glasses is that already?" Bonnie shot back, earning a glower.

"Only my fourth," Grams said. "Had to drown my sorrows somewhere, getting stood up by my favorite granddaughter."

"Your _only_."

"Semantics."

Bonnie worked on her plate, trying not to notice that despite the banter. her grandmother was seriously eyeing her.

"Where I usually am," she finally said, her voice light. "With Elena and Caroline."

"Really? That all?"

"Elena's new boyfriend showed up and Caroline needed moral support."

"Ah." Sheila refilled her glass. "Rivalry still going strong, huh?"

Bonnie shrugged.

"How is it," Grams said. "They spend all that time competing with each other, and never with you?"

"Why would they?" she asked, puzzled.

Silly question, she almost wanted to say. The three of them had grown up well-liked by almost everyone, not exactly _the_ most popular but enough that they managed to get invited to the parties that mattered. Bonnie didn't go half the time, though, and the other half it was mostly because Caroline was forcing her, backed up by Elena. The two were hardly ever comfortable going anywhere just by themselves. So Bonnie trailed along, playing wing woman to one, or both. Occasionally, also playing referee.

Not really a bad place to be, as far as high school careers went. She was comfortable, and happy. Had been.

Up until a few weeks ago. The night of the comet, seemed to signal some kind of turning point for her and her friends.

The same night her Grams started breathing down her neck, oh so subtly.

"You should know, Bonnie," Grams said. "Those girls would sink without you."

Bonnie smiled, then. "I know it," she said cheekily.

"I'm serious. Sometimes, I think-" Grams took another sip.

"What?"

The way her grandmother had been acting since the end of the summer and the start of school was borderline problematic now. First, that talk of being a witch-a concept that kept her up at night lately, because parts of her were starting to believe it: her flashes of intuition, the way strange things kept happening around her-lights flickering, birds dropping from the sky out of the blue, her keys appearing in her hands whenever she was in a rush and she knew, just knew, they were upstairs on the nightstand in her room.

Now, this. Grams nitpicking about Elena and Caroline?

Part of the issue, Bonnie suspected, was because her grandmother's unease fed her own. Which had grown since the night of the comet, when she'd caught a glimpse for one brief moment into Stefan. Seeing into him had made her flinch away like she had touched a hot stove, her mind seared by the unending pain and misery inside of him, coated in...blood. Endless, copious layers of scarlet, dripping all over the flash image, like gallons of paint tossed across a bleak canvas.

Stefan, the same boy spurring the rivalry between her friends to new life-nice as all get out, sure.

The thought wouldn't leave her-he was just bad news.

"Maybe it's time for you to make new friends," Grams muttered.

Bonnie kept quiet. No, that wasn't it. They needed to make _less_ friends, was what she wanted to say. She, Elena, and Caroline-they should stay within their comfortable circle. And keep out anyone with the name of Salvatore.

"Could be right," Bonnie said dismissively, not wanting to trigger more of her grandmother's alarms. "Doesn't mean I'm dropping my existing ones."

"Elena and Caroline should learn to handle themselves without you."

Her laugh was loaded with disbelief. "Grams, what is this?"

"Bonnie, listen."

"No." She pushed her plate away. "It's enough. Nobody's on drugs or catching STDs or getting arrested. It's _Elena_ and _Caroline_. They're practically my sisters."

Her grandmother's face was so gloomy then, Bonnie couldn't understand it. Where was her kooky, fun-loving Grams who went over the latest issue of her botany magazine while they had their nails done at the parlor, and who had-just a few month ago-invited her friends over for a sleepover and made them all banana pancakes at noon, when they all trudged down the stairs after just five hours of sleep?

"Let's just watch the movie, please?" she pleaded, as she removed the glass of wine from her grandmother's hold, dumping it in the sink and doing the same for the bottle.

"Now that's no way to convince me," grumbled the older woman, but she got up anyway.

Soon they were settled on the couch, sharing the large, soft quilt that her grandmother swore she had knitted but Bonnie had seen at the local linen and bedding shop downtown. Exhaustion set in before they'd even gotten halfway through the movie, and though she tried to fight it, Bonnie found herself drifting.

"You forced my hand, child," she heard the murmur, but distantly, as if it was a soft echo, winding its way through a long tunnel, and she was at the far end of it. "I can't let you throw yourself away."

Reflexively, Bonnie murmured something, all of it incoherent. Again from far away, she heard her grandmother merely shush her back.

"You needed a safeguard," came the sad whisper, the last thing to reach her through the growing haze, before blackness claimed her.


	2. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1**

 _Friday Night Bites  
_

It was his 873rd time shopping at this particular Quikmart and he celebrated the event by driving his car directly through the front of the store, shards of glass and pieces of concrete raining on the windshield and denting the hood of the car.

Coolly surveying the path he'd made, he tested the accelerator. The car still purred cooperatively, and he inched forward at a crawl. Crashing through the front registers, he parked in front of the breakfast aisle and then brushed glass and concrete dust off his head and shoulders as he stepped out, put his headphones on, set his walkman to play, and pulled his list out.

 _"Give me a word, give me a sign..."_

Music blared into his ears, and he bopped his head in time, pulling jars of Nutella and strawberry jam from the shelf and dropping them into the shopping cart.

"Show me where to look," he murmured, spinning as he tossed a bag of cinnamon raisin bagels and pretended to make a three-point shot, pumping his hand when it cleared the cart.

 _"Tell me what will I fiiiind..."_

But he couldn't keep it up. Halfway through the list, he got tired of pretending to play point guard and resumed a normal walk through the pasta aisle.

It hadn't been a good day so far, so he knew tonight he wasn't going to bother trying to make anything from scratch. He took a packet, a bottle of vodka sauce, and halfheartedly tossed boxes of pasta over his shoulder and onto the floor until he found the penne he liked. Pushing his cart one-handed, he kept his other arm raised directly out to his sides, sweeping the length of one shelf all the way until the end of the aisle, sauce jars falling to his feet, glass jars shattering around his sneakers in a spray of cream, orange, and red, while plastic ones thunked down on the growing sea of sauce, splattering more fiery colors around his boots and jeans.

He hadn't slept well last night. This grocery store partial demo helped lift his mood.

Staring down at his boots completely encased in sauce, he frowned at the red there, that seemed to taunt him. But it wasn't that night on May 9, flickering through his mind again, those were clear, sharp memories, cutting into his vision those times his brain wandered into dwelling on it.

This was just-a blanket of red. No rhyme or reason. He'd woken himself out of his sleep, sweat drenching his sheets, his body burning, the taste of copper in his mouth, as his gut clenched with hunger and satiation and bone-fucking-deep pain. Saw nothing but blood, even thought for a moment that someone was fucking with him, had used a small brush and dropped red ink directly into his eyeballs. He couldn't that get shit out of his head for the rest of the night.

Kai rubbed at his eyes now, fatigue taking over. He made his way back to the car with his cart, throwing the groceries randomly into the trunk, and then sprawled his length along the backseat, crossing his hands to rest behind his head as he tried to catch some shut-eye before he made the trip back home.

-oOoOo-

Bonnie watched Elena worry about Caroline and her new ride-ahem, her new man, Damon Salvatore. Clearly the jerky one in predictable opposition to his brother.

Caroline smugly led them through drills and formation, her instructions ringing out shrilly. Elena stumbled during the routine, her distraction obvious, but Bonnie stayed focused, although her body was sluggish from lack of sleep.

She'd had nightmares again about the psychic imprint from Stefan. Waking up hadn't helped much since, at the tail end of her restless sleep, the numbers eight, fourteen, and twenty-two had played on repeat beneath her lids.

And was stuck there now, stamping her vision like an unwanted logo.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven!" screamed Caroline, pushing the team, letting her voice fire faster and faster as the group repeated.

When Elena got sent to the back with a condescending sympathy smile from Caroline, Bonnie glared daggers at the blonde, trying to send her a message. If she got the other brother, what the hell was up Caroline's ass?

Afterwards, she found herself alone in the locker room, freshly showered and changed, and now feeling like a nap. She was pulling out her brush from the locker when it dropped to the floor, fingers made clumsy from exhaustion. Bending to pick it up, Bonnie blinked in shock.

Her sneakers-pristine and white just seconds ago-were completely covered in red and orange goo.

"Wha-" she sat quickly, stretching them out before her, and the movement brought a whiff of something familiar. Pasta sauce.

Not goo. Tomato and basil and-she sniffed-vodka sauce. Bottle kind.

She closed her eyes, squeezing them open and shut, knowing that when they opened, the colors would be gone.

And they were, but the scent of tomato with basil lingered in her mind long after.

Later, at Elena's, her nerves worked up to a mini freak out in front of her friend. It didn't help that the primary source of the freak out would soon be arriving, to sit in front of her and share a meal and conversation and somehow, she would have to find a way not to blurt out questions about what kind of carnage Stefan had witnessed in his life.

"Tell him about your family," her friend suggested, as the three sat at the dinner table, pretending to be absorbed in their meal. Elena nodded encouragingly, earnest and well-meaning, but so, so misguided that Bonnie couldn't help giving her a look. _Bitch, please,_ might've been appropriate just then-if she was the type to throw it around. Maybe Caroline would've.

"Divorced," Bonnie said, smiling awkwardly at Stefan's puppy-dog eyes. "No mom, live with my Dad."

He blinked at that succinct history.

But Elena, of course, proceeded to outline in great detail the aspect of Bonnie's family that she was fairly sure she hadn't given her the okay on to share with others. Especially, anyone whose last name started with Sal and ended with Tore.

Strangely, though, Stefan didn't greet the news with hysterical laughter. Instead, he leaned his elbows on the table, his deep brows turning thoughtful, as he spoke about his knowledge of Salem witches and used terms like 'heroines.'

Oh, he was good. A pro, even.

When he left the kitchen momentarily, Bonnie gave Elena a careful look. Her friend was all ears, so hopeful that Bonnie couldn't help tucking away the concern that hadn't really ebbed even though Stefan had superb manners. _Yes, good boy, mama taught you well._

Whoever she had been. Hopefully not the source of his trauma.

At the end of the night, though, the small progress that her inner peace of mind had made suffered a huge setback. Mr. Tanner, her hated history teacher-dead. Building 8, 14 on the license plate of the car he'd been found in, on parking space 22. Clues to where he'd died, or at least, where someone had stuffed his corpse. The teacher who liked to give her a hard time. Was it possible she'd overlooked the signs on purpose? But no, what a dumb thought. Even Sherlock Holmes wouldn't have cracked that.

She lay in her bed, sleep evading her much of the night, and when she awoke at three in the morning, it was to find that her sheets were soaked, and she was a sweltering mess. The edges of her consciousness shaking off images from her latest nightmare. This time it was a bat, dragging along a wooden floor, trailing crimson. Handprints on the walls, made in blood. More. Damn. Blood.

Her room was dark, shadows from the streetlamp outside forming gnarled fingers reaching ominously along the walls in her room. Just tree branches, that was all. She needed to get a grip.

Finally, after an hour of frowning at her walls, she turned on her bedside light. Twenty minutes after that, she gave up and decided to shower once again, to wash the sweat off, and maybe let the water lull her into the kind of restful sleep that she hadn't had in over a week now.

Stripping down to her underwear and tank, she brushed her teeth out of habit, hovering over the sink, her hands shaking as she put away her toothbrush and turned off the water.

When she looked up, shock and terror gripped her.

A man stared back, in place of her own reflection.

Muffling a scream and the urge to look over her shoulder, she kept her eyes locked on to the silent figure. He wasn't behind her, she knew.

 _He took my place_ , this dark-haired, empty-eyed stranger. But his face was as stunned as hers probably was, if she could see it. He didn't have his shirt on, and looked like he was about to shower himself. Her arm jerked. His own didn't mimic it, a thought that allowed her to keep a grip on reality just then.

Distantly, a part of her mind offered the most reasonable explanation.

She was still dreaming. Bonnie leaned away, barely breathing, cautious as he lifted a hand and touched the mirror. His face moving nearer, she saw now that he was barely a man. Older than her, but his face was clean shaven, lean but not angular, youth clinging to his features.

His eyes were still dead, though. Surprise rested only on the surface. Underneath it, was nothing more than cold granite.

Bonnie stared at him, unable to break her gaze. He leaned in further, his face almost pressed against the glass, and she saw his breath cloud a spot in the mirror, his fingers tracing there.

Alarmed, she opened the medicine cabinet, breaking the visual contact, manic eyes roving the over-the-counter pills and creams and containers of Q-tips and a box of band-aids, mundane objects that gave her comfort to look at.

He had been on the verge of forming letters on the mirror. She didn't want to know which. She counted to twenty in her head, praying that this was her dream still, and she would wake up with no memory.

When she closed the medicine cabinet, the mirror showed her face again, and her shoulders sagged, relief washing over her.

She didn't take that shower.

The aftershock of it was a mad, violent thing, causing tremors all over her body, making her burrow under her blanket, no longer sweating, but covered now in goose bumps. She fell asleep with the duvet pulled over her head.

When she awoke, groggy, she stumbled into the bathroom without thought, going through the routine of washing her face and brushing her teeth, barely blinking.

Something in the corner of the mirror caught her eyes, faint lines that she couldn't make sense of.

Peering closer, her breath touched the glass, fogging up the spot, and her memory kicked in-empty eyes, a large hand reaching up to trace against the glass with long fingers.

I A K - the last letter backwards, because-

 _-he was on the other side of the mirror._

A small whimper left her lips then, and she looked wildly around her, suffused with terror all over again.

She ran out of the room, dressing hastily, her keys ending up in her hands without thought. Again. Her shoes, too, because she'd fled the house barefoot, was her level of panic. She was sitting behind the wheel realizing that, when suddenly there they were, her favorite flats, encasing her feet neatly.

Bonnie fumbled the keys into the ignition and drove to her grandmother's cottage for refuge.

-oOoOo-

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven!"

He stumbled, almost tripping over himself. "Shit," he muttered, closing his eyes, teeth gritted.

"One, two, three, four, five six, seven! Come on, heifers! We don't have all day!"

The high voice rang out somewhere to the left, as he walked along the street, heading nowhere specifically, but sick of staying indoors and tired of Baywatch. Buxom and swimsuits just wasn't enough sometimes.

Air. He needed some of that. Even his shitty parents sometimes let him out to take in sun, back in the day. An entire week binging on junk food and beer and bad TV-even that lost its appeal. His arteries were clogged, his mucus membranes dry, and he couldn't...

 _Green eyes wide with fright, hair mussed and falling into a tired face._

...get that girl out of his head.

Without intending to, his feet followed the piercing shouts.

Because-great. After a decade and a half, _finally_ , he was suffering a total break from reality. It was about damn time, was his relieved thought, but he wished that it was quicker, more complete. Not that he was complaining about certain aspects of it.

The girl in the mirror, for one.

Terrified.

Hot.

As far as hallucinations went, she was a solid nine out of ten. Missing a point because she hadn't screamed, didn't even make a single sound, despite how scared out of her mind she looked.

It was always better when they screamed.

That nothing happened surprised him. He liked to think his consciousness ran deep, was fertile with imagination. There were a lot of places it could've gone, after he found her in the mirror. Was he turning soft? Not good. Not if he was going batshit crazy. One would think, it would be the opposite. If he was going to put all reason and sanity behind him, what lay ahead should be berserker rage. On one lone little prison world. With him finally having worthy prey.

Her death was where it should've ended. She wasn't real, anyway.

And yet-

She was the first face he'd seen in over fifteen years, not counting the ones that popped up in nightmares, dreams, and television. If it weren't for the mirror, he might've thought he could just reach out and touch her.

"Formations!" came the shriek. "Make it snappy!"

But.

Yeah.

The way she talked made nails on a chalkboard seem like an orchestral symphony. Next time she wandered into a mental health episode, he was definitely going to kill her.

Or at least, cut out her voice box. His new imaginary friend could live without that.


	3. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

 _Family Ties_

"How about this one?" Elena asked, holding out a green mini dress.

Bonnie eyed it, noting that it didn't plunge too low but would end way too high up her thighs, for her dad to let her out of the house wearing it.

"Cute, but the skirt's not gonna get clearance," Bonnie said.

Caroline threw up her hands. "Of all the times for Rudy Hopkins _not_ to be away on a business trip..."

The Founder's Ball was this Saturday, and although Bonnie had at least four different dresses in her closet that could've been worn, and Elena said she'd bought a new dress last month that had yet to be aired out, Caroline insisted they all get new ones, hauling the three of them after class to the mall. If nothing else, it was just fun to be here with them doing girly stuff without the name Stefan or Damon crossing anyone's mouth. Things were getting far too awkward now, to the point that Bonnie had started eating lunch with some of the other girls from the squad, or with Matt sometimes, when he wasn't busy patrolling his sister Vicky.

Caroline pulled out a black number with a pencil skirt, holding it up and out with a practiced eye against Bonnie's frame. But the plunging neckline would have her breasts hanging out. "if I wear this," Bonnie said, quirking a brow. "My girls will need their own invitations to the ball."

Her two friends cracked up. "Try it on, at least," Caroline said, smiling.

Bonnie was relieved to see that on her friend's face again, but hated the sight of the scarf around her neck. Caroline had taken to wearing it the last few weeks and for some reason, she pictured black and blue bruises under there. Bonnie couldn't snatch the thing off-she was dying to-but she wouldn't, no matter how much she wanted something concrete to support her belief that Damon Salvatore was not fling material. Elena was disapproving enough, and Caroline already borderline froze her out. But that was maybe for other reasons, outside of Damon.

Beyond that, Bonnie was afraid to delve. Her two friends' head spaces were landmines she no longer felt like exploring. Maybe a week ago, she would have made the effort.

Now she had her own damn problems.

Like...oh, the man in the mirror.

She hadn't seen him again, a plus. The huge minus was in how she now, randomly, heard songs blaring-in her car or in her bedroom, or worse, in class-that were too grungy for her taste, or just roughly two decades past their prime. Some of them were catchy, though, and she'd almost caught detention one day, after she kept breaking into humming. When she got home and googled the lyrics in her head, she decided the song was perfect for her life right now. And for her friends.

 _"I'm a creep..."_

Not a band that she had ever really heard before, but now, they were up there as a favorite. It made her laugh, to have that song on her phone, and the lyrics went on a loop now, anytime she saw either Stefan or Damon.

 _"I'm a weirdo..."_

What wiped the smile off her face sometimes, and made her wish the words weren't stuck in her head?

 _"What the hell am I doing here?"_

The letters I and A and K flashing beneath her lids, and a pair of steely eyes that never once blinked as they stared out at her.

 _"I don't belong here..."_

Against her better judgment, she let Caroline drag her to the fitting rooms. Stepping into an empty stall, Bonnie clutched the dress tightly to her, the mirror in front clean and expansive, holding her own small form in its midst. She was afraid to blink, and miss the moment when it changed, and the stranger would reappear, claiming her space in the glass.

She didn't blink. But the scene changed anyway.

The mirror lost her reflection, morphing without warning to a view of the sky, clear blue and cloudless, and a bright sun staring out that suddenly went into hiding, pale skies dimming then as a black hole appeared above.

An eclipse.

Seconds passed, gloomy shadows descending over the fitting room stall. Bonnie stepped to the mirror, her fingers up as if to touch it. She closed her eyes, heard the whisper of branches swaying, the crunch of branches and leaves under someone's boots, and then-footsteps slowing, stopping. She opened her eyes, to find the perspective shifting, the world spinning left and right, as if through the lens of a camcorder in motion.

Through someone else's eyes, she scanned a darkened forest.

Bonnie retreated from the mirror as it returned to normal, showing only her and the dress she had bunched up in her trembling hands.

"What the hell?" she whispered, her face confused. Seconds passed, and then her reflection scowled abruptly, anger filling her, warming her scalp, and heat traveled through to her hands. Her fingers clawed, forming a fist, and she squeezed her hands, utterly, completely consumed with a need to vent. She could've screamed just then.

The mirror cracked.

She ran out.

"What's wrong?" Elena asked-dear, sweet, annoyingly observant-while Caroline just lifted a brow.

"Not like the dress?" her blonde friend asked.

"Nope," Bonnie said, hanging it on the rack, and strode out of the store, out of the mall, and to the parking lot, leaning against Caroline's car, closing her eyes only then.

-oOoOo-

So the mirror was splintered. First a small crack that he noticed just this afternoon, but hours later, had crept up and out and grew into a messy spider web of expanding lines, threatening to shatter.

He gave his new imaginary friend his name, and she gave him broken bathroom fixtures.

"Not nice," he murmured, leaning in to inspect the damage.

The next day, he made a trip to the hardware store to find a new mirror. This time, he upgraded, getting one larger and longer, enough-he hoped-that he maybe he could fool his hallucinatory self into squeezing through, next time she showed up. Or anyone, really. Maybe it didn't need to be the same girl.

Maybe he'd find different people. Except there hadn't been anyone aside from her so far. Her and her unfortunate tone of speech. And the feeling of someone looking over his shoulder, at random times. Like during his walk through the woods yesterday. The same day the crack appeared.

Some part of him was arguing that he himself had broken the mirror. It lasted a few hours, the internal discussion.

He didn't remember doing it.

 _Why would you? It's called a psychotic break. Part two, in your case._

There was no evidence, no injury on his hands, no tools laying around in the bathroom that looked hard enough to do damage without breaking.

 _You were thorough, you cleaned up._

He didn't keep up the argument long. Another theory popped up, far easier to accept, that he was currently putting up a new mirror with nicer trimming and a larger vantage point, for no damn good reason at all. Because the old mirror was probably fine. Not cracked, not even a little. And he was just imagining it, as he'd done the petite girl, dusky-skinned and jade eyed, who would've been pretty if she hadn't been, he remembered with amusement, so totally petrified.

He placed her at high school. maybe a junior, possibly sophomore. Old enough for him to imagine her in a lifeguard swimsuit. Her frame was like Summer's, his favorite on Baywatch.

Maybe she was someone he'd once encountered before, in real life. Six billion people in the world, countless faces passed in the street day after day, and even though he didn't much care about their thoughts and feelings and all the trimmings of human drama that accounted for everyday life-encounter someone memorable enough, and their features were bound to stick. Subconsciously.

That happened, right?

But the more he reasoned with himself, the harder it got to accept. Missed eclipses and freak lightning storms, in place of the same routine weather that he had memorized across different parts of the globe these past fifteen years. When he wanted snow, he went way north, to Banff, and started May 10 there, up to his knees in white fluff. Hankering for rain, and he tripped along to Seattle, because from 2:43 in the afternoon and for the rest of the day, the skies there drenched the city in a torrential downpour.

Only, not always. Not anymore. The last time he'd gone to Canada, Banff stayed gray and cold without a snowflake in sight. And several visits now, sleepless in Seattle came about because the city shook off the storm and persisted in staying sunny.

Was it possible...that it was all in his head? The weather hadn't changed. Just him.

Kai finished hanging up his new mirror, squinting to double check that it was even. But he saw his hand tremble, so how the fuck was he supposed to keep anything straight when his own fingers couldn't stay that way?

A thought crossed his mind, then.

It'd been a while now, since he tried suicide.

Maybe dying would fix him.

-oOoOo-

The Lockwood mansion teemed with people, a lot of them she didn't know and didn't care to know, although some seemed to make overtures to friendliness, even though they couldn't remember her name. One hostess with cold hands touched Bonnie's shoulder, overly familiar smile in place.

"Oh, Rudy's daughter? Of course. Here, have a glass of punch."

The woman waved her away distractedly, and Bonnie thanked her, then tripped along, wandering from room to room.

She eyed old books and jewels in one room, encased in glass cabinets. The Heritage Display contained items that she wanted to know more about-books, gems, and weapons with long history. If only Grams had made it, but her grandmother had pleaded a headache, although Bonnie heard her muttering something involving 'pompous' and 'asses' and 'never again'-so that excuse was suspect.

Her father found her eventually, and together they made rounds. He had a seat in the board of directors for the downtown business coalition, and kept getting pulled into discussions that they clearly were reluctant to speak of in front of her. So Bonnie excused herself.

Tyler's mother passed her. Carol Lockwood was gracious, warm and welcoming, but then seconds later, Bonnie found the staff apparently weren't worthy of the same treatment from the woman. She walked into another room, Carol's rebuke carrying, as the woman raked a waiter over the coals about a spill somewhere.

Nearby, she saw Tyler standing by the stairs, speaking with a group of friends. His mother's voice reaching him then, he looked up just as Bonnie's eyes found him.

It would've been easy to miss the quick flash of embarrassment on his face, but Bonnie saw it, and was glad.

Her gaze caught Elena and Stefan across the room, approached by Caroline, with Damon hovering in the wings, diabolical smirk fully in place. The elder Salvatore's eyes skipped around quickly, found Bonnie's, and he tipped his glass to her, sipping smugly.

She longed to wipe it from his face, especially when Elena and Stefan both suddenly shared nervous glances, as Caroline glided away with Stefan to join a dance.

Eventually, Bonnie made her way to the long tables set up on the patio, where soft lights hung over the crowd. Dinner service was under way, but she couldn't find her dad.

"Your seat's there, hon," said one of the hostesses, ushering her to the end of a bench.

One last time, Bonnie searched for her father's tall figure, saw him finally, standing with another group of colleagues on the far end of the lawn. He waved at her, and she angled her head to the tables, but he simply nodded, then turned back to his group.

Sighing, she took her seat. The spaces around her were also empty.

For a Founder's ball, she sure felt a little lost.

-oOoOo-

This time, he chose to sit in the car, in the driver's seat, with the garage door remote handy, and the car filled at less than a quarter of a tank.

Back up plans were key. The first attempt to kill himself this way, he just wanted it easy, bloodless, and relatively painless. So he'd sprawled on the hood of the car, spread-eagled, and then when he died, it never crossed his mind, the sheer inanity of what came next.

The magic in this hellhole kept healing him, the regenerative process steady and slow, and working in direct contrast to the gas that-equally steady and slow-kept filling his lungs and his cells. Two opposite forces at work, and where did that leave him? Spasming back to life in a choking fit, dazed and weak and unable to crawl off the hood to escape, before he went and died again.

A loop of death and resuscitation in an oil-stained garage, that lasted a day, until the car finally ran out of gas, and he'd stumbled out of the fog, mad at himself but thrilled that the prolonged asthma attack was behind him.

So he could be stupid sometimes. Nobody was perfect. He was close enough.

As the engine purred, he stared through the windshield of the garage. He was back on the southeast, holing up in Florida now, taking in sun and sand. Clearwater was as good a place as any to die, and he'd found a cozy little beach home with a convertible in the garage, and some good grub in the fridge. After making himself some chicken marsala, he'd spent another hour channel surfing before he gave that up.

What he really wanted to see, was someone's face. Anyone's. Didn't even have to be that girl.

He lay back against the head rest, blinking at the fog of carbon monoxide rising around him. His thoughts were growing fuzzy, and in a few minutes, he'd be done. This was a way to fix whatever was going wonky up there, and if it worked, when he woke up, he'd have no more bouts of insanity that brought glimpses of a total stranger's face and voice. He wouldn't have this sense of sharing this isolated world with another.

It hit him, now, when he was dying, that maybe just one last hallucination would be okay. Was that asking for too much?

Drowsy, he lifted his head, turning it to the side to check that the garage door opener near. His hand still held it, loosely now, though, as his body weakened.

Then something bright caught his eye.

A short candle, its flame flickering gently, beckoned to him from where it rested incongruously on the dashboard.

 _Hell, yes._

He chuckled with delight, as he leaned forward, vision swimming. Then he sputtered, coughing, directly onto the flame, blowing it out.

"Dammit," he muttered, disappointed as the dead candle emitted wafts of smoke.

He coughed some more, trying to cover his mouth, the candle suddenly flickered to life again.

Minutes passed, and his vision stayed on that tiny yellow light, hypnotized by its swaying motion. At some point, it looked like it would die out again. His eyes started to close.

A woman's voice reached him, deep but unpleasant, older. "Do something about this!" she barked.

"Bitch," came the soft, low voice.

That one stirred his eyes open.

He hadn't heard that voice before. Even just cursing, it sounded...nice.

Through the haze, he looked past the windshield, and he made out a formal dining room, decked out with fancy platters and flowers. And candles, hundreds of them clustered around the room, all of them unlit.

A long, wide mirror along the wall showed the room's only occupant.

It was her.

His stomach lurched, something jumping from there to his chest, spiking his heart rate. Though that was probably the carbon monoxide, also.

Wavy hair, wearing a flowy halter dress, her skin gleamed golden under the dim light of a chandelier. She bent down, peering at one candle in concentration, and he saw long lashes flutter as her face frowned. She turned, then made to walk out.

"No," he called out, to her back in the mirror.

The room brightened suddenly, as hundreds of candles came to life.

She stopped, didn't move for a second except to turn her head and take in the lit candle beside her, resting on a wall shelf.

When she turned, he fell against the seat, feeling faint and groggy and wishing now that his eyes weren't so damn cloudy.

Her face glowed under the light of the dancing flames, and her smile was-

Desperately, he grabbed the garage door opener, shoving clumsy fingers on the button. The door in front of him whined, then rumbled open.

Kai stumbled out of the car, falling to his knees as his body tried to shut down.

He coughed, fighting it. Because now he didn't want to die. This type of broken, he could handle.

If he was even broken at all. Maybe it was the noxious fumes messing with his head, but there was a chance this girl wasn't a figment of his imagination. She was young, scared, standing in a room full of candles that had just suddenly been lit, without a match or lighter in sight.

Just her.

This girl...

Was a witch.

-oOoOo-

She saw him in the dining room mirror.

With a muted shiver wracking her frame, and knowing that nobody else was in there, furtive steps brought her closer to the mirror.

Now he was dressed in jeans and a tee, crouched on the floor of what looked like a garage. Fog wrapped around the image, but it was dispersing. On the edge of the scene was a view of the street beyond, and she saw tall stalks of grass amidst a sea of sand and beyond, a large, full moon casting light over a choppy ocean.

She turned from that view, to where the man leaned weakly against the car.

Then he looked up, meeting her eyes. His face was pale-much more ashen than the first time she'd seen him. He looked ill.

He lifted a hand. Then his fingers twitched, and she blinked.

He was waving at her.

She glanced away, around the dining room, and almost gave into a hysterical laugh.

She was going crazy.

That thought settled in her mind, firmly. When she glanced back, his eyes had closed. The rise and fall of his chest kept her from thinking he was dead.

Oh, good. Creepy mirror man was safe. And possibly, he'd be back later, to visit her in another mirror.

"Look what the cat dragged in," came a voice behind her.

She whirled and found pale blue eyes standing too close, malice and curiosity mixed evenly as they studied her. The tall, lean figure loomed over her, and she guessed he was going for intimidating, but her thoughts were spinning. She quickly shifted, so that his back was to the mirror.

Stifling a gasp, she kept her gaze firm on the man before her, ignoring the other one, the imaginary one whose eyes slowly opened, taking all of this in.

"Bonnie, is it? I don't believe we've been formally introduced."

"You're Damon," she said distractedly. "Bane of Stefan's existence."

"Ding ding ding. And possibly yours, if you get on my bad side." He smirked. "Don't get on my bad side, Bon Bon."

"Don't call me that, Demon," she said, but barely putting that much effort into the exchange. The man-he was standing now, and approaching the edge of the mirror. Sluggish, but making a definite effort.

Damon seemed to pick up on her nerves. He frowned.

"What's wrong with you?' He glanced around, then at himself. "I'm not even doing anything, and I'd think you were about to piss your pants."

She eyed the mirror again, panicked now, and the man there suddenly stilled.

Damon whirled, looking at the mirror himself, before he looked back, his brow quirked.

"Figures," he muttered, eyeing her dubiously. "Another Bennett weirdo, latest in a long line of them."

He strolled out of the room.

Slack-jawed, Bonnie tried to process it. Damon didn't see it. Didn't see _him_. It was only her, so she _was_ crazy.

Her gaze strayed back to the mirror, finding gray eyes, still hazy, but with new hardness there. As if they hadn't been cold before, now they were officially in iceberg territory. But with a trace of something else.

Hope? But more...

 _Scheming_ hope.

She backed out of the room slowly, her mouth forming the words to her resolve as she returned his suspicious appraisal. "Go. _Away._ "

* * *

 **A/N:** Two updates in one day, thanks to a few days off work. It might be a week before either story gets updated, though. Also, thanks to everyone who faved, followed, and reviewed. I saw a lot of comparisons to Sens8, got curious, watched the first few eps, and am now HOOKED. So thanks for that. Ch1 mirror scene and the music elements are almost the exact same, which I totally didn't intend, so nobody sue me LOL. And the mirror connection might also be similar to Torin the warlock from the Hex Hall books from Rachel Hawkins, so ya know, to be safe, I disclaim that too. ;) **  
**


	4. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

 _You're Undead to Me_

A few days after his failed suicide, he high-tailed it back to Oregon, accepting the truth that millions of retirees had clearly figured out: Florida was a good place to die but terrible for research.

In Portland, he hit the books, beginning with an archaic text from the Gemini archives.

All he personally knew of the Bennett line was of Sheila Bennett, sometime ally of his parents, who used to infrequently attend the larger coven assemblies.

As a boy, he'd often spied on the visitors who came, stayed in the guest house of his parents' property, closeted there for days with the other coven members, and then disappeared again as quietly as they arrived. Because members of the Gemini coven were from some of the oldest witch families around, there weren't many outsiders who made lasting impressions.

A Bennett always managed to.

On one of the final gatherings before what he now came to think of as his own version of a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Kai had taken extra measures to keep himself apprised of his father's actions. Cloaked by the shadows of the giant weeping willow tree, and by some stolen magic from his twin, Kai had sat for hours listening by the tree, using an enhancing spell to narrow in on the conversations within the guest house.

"How goes it with the Tribunal, Sheila?" one of the other witches had asked.

"Same as always, a balancing act," the woman had replied coolly, inviting no further comment.

The old lady's calm was unnerving. She seemed nurturing like his mother was-with his siblings at least- and powerful like his father, and yet, many times removed from them. Because while his mother played the nurturer, she was also weak-willed and anxious. And his father's overtures to greatness masked what had always seemed to Kai to be false leadership.

Whenever Kai had heard anyone speaking of the Bennetts, something of their ancient lines was always mentioned. Needing no covens to help channel or augment their power, they drew from their own raw talents and all of nature, tempered with control and, of course, those pesky ethics that his dad had said was the cornerstone of the Bennetts.

Ethics which had played a role in Kai's imprisonment. As he'd found out shortly after starting his sentence. Bennetts and their fucking blood and magic and righteousness. Judgmental bitches.

He sat in his family's living room, broken red lines marring the floor and scattered crimson handprints along the walls, the staircase banisters, the windows, and along the back of the couch, all a stark contrast to the soft afternoon sun gently filtering in through the enormous bay windows.

Over fifteen years he'd been here. They should've just called the cops. He could've done jail, would've put up with a six by eight foot steel holding cell for years with a bunk bed and a shared toilet. At least he wouldn't have been alone. Surrounded by humans, what was the worse he could do to them? It was other witches and supernatural creatures that he posed a threat to.

Jail might've been the first place in his entire life where he fit in.

But then, with his face and his body, jail would've also presented some newer problems, but most days, he leaned towards optimism. He'd seen Midnight Express enough times to be hopeful about his ability to thwart prison rape. No, becoming someone's bitch wasn't the main concern about prison.

He'd also seen Cool Hand Luke enough times to feel for the guy, and to start doubting, in recent years, his chances of escaping imprisonment of any type. Whether it was a cell or an entire fucking dimension.

His first couple years, he'd wasted no time finding the Ascendant and playing at being a sponge, absorbing everything he could about prison worlds, combing through text after text from all corners of mainland North America. After learning to fly a plane, he'd spread his horizons, pouring over archives on the other continents, focusing on Greece and the roots of his coven.

All that research? For shit. Because he had no potent enough magic to draw from, once he found potential spells that could lead to escape. He'd tried unearthing mystical artifacts and siphoning those, which had done nothing more than give him minor fixes that lasted all too quickly, leaving him both drained and hyper, and wondering if crack addicts had it better.

 _Go away._

Her first words to him always brought a smile to his face. Rude. She was definitely that.

Also a Bennett. Figured that with his luck, the first girl he saw after fifteen years of solitude would be someone he'd be compelled to maim on sheer principle.

Damn shame.

Flipping through pages idly now, he thought back to that night he'd eavesdropped on the council meeting. Towards the end there, when the meeting was reaching its close, chit chat had sprung up between one of the elders and Sheila, and she'd thawed a little there.

Kai remembered the other thing that struck him about Sheila Bennett.

She hadn't been able to stop bragging about her new granddaughter.

And now, thanks to the asshole in the room with her, who'd looked like an extra from Melrose Place with his dumb overdone swagger and attempt to invade her personal space-now, he knew her name.

Bonnie.

Bonnie Bennett.

He liked the alliteration there. It would look good as a comic book alias.

Or on a gravestone.

Closing his eyes, he brought his arms to rest behind his head, concentrating. He was starting to piece it together, slowly.

Young, scared, magic coming out in little bursts at unexpected moments. Manifesting her powers a little late. No control, that was her problem. Worked in his favor, though. All that magic, somehow opening a window into his dimension. It didn't always stay open, but now when he focused he sometimes got lucky, drifting into moments that let him peek back out into hers.

Like now.

Music, and chatter, and the hum of car engines. Girls in bikinis-oh, hell yea-and guys in wife beaters. All of them with sudsy cloths and buckets sloshing soapy water.

"Tiki," came her voice, and he was so damn glad that he'd been wrong about how she sounded. "This one's yours."

"Why do I always get the homely ones? Just to be clear, your car's a POS. We can wash it, but it's still a POS."

His gaze shifted to a short teenage boy on the verge of crying.

"You don't have to be rude."

Oh, the irony.

More back and forth, and then he felt it, the surge of anger, as he stared at a tall, pretty girl, dark skin glossy and flawless, nasty smirk in place. She was pissing Bonnie off. Tiki? He liked her already.

She had her hands in the bucket, but the water in it started bubbling, steam rising, and the girl pulled her hands out yelping as the hose inside of it suddenly coiled wildly out, spraying her. She screamed, and a blond boy rushed over to help.

Intense satisfaction washed over him.

The view shifted quickly, Bonnie turning to face a car next to her, and the reflection in the window gave him a view, through her eyes, of herself.

Small, trim waist, and honey-gold skin, miles of it, in a bikini and tiny white shorts. Wavy hair flowed loosely over the brown triangle pieces of her top that didn't much hide the plump swell of her breasts. There went that same pretty face with the now-familiar hint of a puckered brow, like it was a permanent fixture, her being worried.

And in teasing contrast, that mouth. Built for kissing. Or blowjobs.

Opening his eyes, cutting the connection, he sat up, nostrils flaring in annoyance as he swallowed thickly.

So she was hot. Big fucking whoop.

-oOoOo-

The room was sound-proofed, dark, cool, and the waiter who served them had barely glanced at the fake IDs Jeremy had snagged from somewhere-Bonnie assumed the internet, although with his newest gang of friends, it was more likely someone local with a growing rap sheet, and definitely not anyone that Elena's little brother should've known. He'd changed over the summer into almost a total stranger. Understandable, given his recent loss, but now the trend was catching, and she wasn't much of a fan.

She sat on the plush leather couch, eyeing her two friends on either side of her, both of them determined to look everywhere but at the other, misgiving heavy in the air.

Bonnie finally sighed in aggravation and was the first to order shots, earning raised brows from Elena and an approving smirk from Caroline.

Then she leaned down, snatched one of her sharp stilettos that Caroline had insisted she wear 'heels will help you pass for twenty-one, short stuff'-and held it up experimentally, pretending to slice at the space in front of her.

Elena was the first to turn her head, pretty face puckering in confusion. "Are you okay?"

Caroline lifted one cool brow. "She did say she's losing her mind. Do crazy people play with their shoes in public?"

"Didn't have a knife," Bonnie said. "I needed something sharp to cut the tension in the room."

"Ha-ha," said Caroline dryly, cutting her eyes across to Elena, who pursed her mouth in a failed to hide a smile before she started laughing.

"So corny," the brunette said, rolling her eyes fondly at Bonnie.

"Plus these shoes are doing permanent damage to my pinky toes. Thanks, Care."

"Not my fault that neither of your parents passed you the genetic code for their height."

Bonnie sighed. No, just magic from her mom, and the squeaky-clean do-gooder mentality from her dad.

"We can't all be Amazons, Caroline," Elena said, reaching out to hug Bonnie sideways.

It was the first time her two friends had spoken in days, and the only reason they were even here was because Bonnie had decided to share her mental breakdown. Because she'd tried her Grams the day before, but the older woman had just picked up her bag of occult texts and speared her with an intense glare.

"They're called visions, Bonnie," her grandmother said. "You should pay attention to them. I'll need more than 'ever see weird stuff?' to go on. Describe weird."

But her grandmother had been running late for class, and Bonnie already felt bad taking up the afternoon to pick her brain about all things mystical, setting her behind on grading papers. While at the cottage, she'd also walked in on a phone call that didn't sound pleasant. Her father's voice rang out, muffled but unmistakably angry, and the look on her grandmother's face gave Bonnie a clue about the source of conflict. Her father had found a grimoire in Bonnie's bag the other day. He wasn't much a fan of the new development.

She was putting too much on Grams.

Soon, their drinks arrived. Cosmopolitan for Caroline, mojito for Elena, and Long Beach Iced Tea for herself because she really wanted to get drunk fast tonight. Armed with fortification, the three settled into their seats, flipping through the song playbook as the waiter set up the large flat panel screen, handed them three mics, and then disappeared.

Caroline, of course, opened the night.

"If it makes you happyyy, it can't that baaaaad..."

And she was good, girl had the pitch, the lessons, and the presence. Bonnie sat with Elena, both of them bopping their heads to their friend's selections. The waiter reappeared twice with more of their drinks and presently, the liquor a mellow burn in her throat and a fuzzy blanket in her mind, Bonnie was ready.

I A K.

K A I.

It was easier, to keep the letters from sticking too close together in her mind. She didn't want to acknowledge that her delusion might carry an actual name. And not a name that fit, those rare times she allowed her brain to dwell on it.

It was something that might suit a yoga instructor. Or someone vegan.

He didn't look either of those types.

She took another sip of her drink.

Acknowledging his name. That would be-accepting it. Embracing insanity.

But what was lighting up a roomful of candles, then?

"Okay, Phoebe," came the exasperated voice, as Caroline dropped next to her. "Spill. Does this have anything to do with your Grams and the whole Salem witch thing? Because I'm pretty sure I told you not to pay attention to her boozy talk."

"Thought I acted more like Piper," muttered Bonnie.

"No, that'd be Elena, especially now that she has her own personal white knight."

"True. Stefan's definitely Leo."

On her other side, Elena started smiling. "That means Cole's waiting in the wings for you, Bon."

And there went her good mood, just down the drain. Bonnie tried not to let her panic show, but Elena was always quick with the draw there. She felt eyes burning into the side of her face, and turned away, but a firm grip suddenly held her wrist.

Brown eyes peered suspiciously into her own, before they widened. "You totally met a guy for real, didn't you?"

Caroline gasped. "What? Where was I?"

 _Fighting with your best friend like a dog over a bone_ , Bonnie almost said.

Leave it to her friends to assume this was run-of-the-mill boy trouble. Sure, she'd met a guy. In reflective surfaces. And she was also sharing some fairly gruesome nightmares with him, too, bloody bats and small bodies being hung from the staircase rail or pushed under the surface of a gleaming blue pool. Causing sleeplessness and bouts of nausea and dread night after night this whole week now. Since she was sure those weren't her memories, or anything she'd picked up from Stefan, where to lay the blame for those pleasant scenes pointed to only one other.

Bonnie let out a shaky breath, covering her face. "Wrong idea here, you two," she whispered, as her mind ran with the image of a small dark head trying to fight his way to the surface of the water. Large, long-fingered hands keeping him under.

Long fingers that traced a path on the mirror before her.

"I'm seeing things, bad things." Her eyes squeezed, in an effort to purge the images from her brain, not that it ever worked but she couldn't stop trying. "A bad man. I think he's a murderer."

"Oooh. Kinky."

Bonnie glared at her friend, then wondered why bother? Damon was Caroline's new hobby, and who knew what kind of skeletons were in his closet. Touching Stefan by accident had offered up a world of misery, and Bonnie swore to keep a wide berth around Damon. His touch would probably send her to the ninth gates of hell.

Then again, maybe she was there already.

"You should find a new rebound guy," she said to the blonde.

Who immediately scowled, as she picked through the song book, then asked in a bored tone, "What's he look like? Where'd you meet?"

Bonnie shook her head. "You wouldn't believe me."

Caroline's jaw dropped, and Elena shifted to face Bonnie more fully. "Wait, so you're serious?" Caroline asked. "Bonnie, don't be a tease. Share."

"Tall, dark, and deadly," said Bonnie, her tone sarcastic. "Sums it up, I think."

"Normally I'd say not your type," Caroline picked up the mic. "But you could use a change."

"Bonnie," Elena leaned close, frowning, and she breathed in relief because at least one friend was seeing beyond her mockery. "When did you start seeing him?"

"Couple weeks ago. Ever since the night of the comet."

Elena's worry grew. "Why do you think he's a murderer?"

"Nightmares. Feels more like-memories."

After the Founder's ball, she'd holed up in her room, hosting a pity party slash breakdown with herself the only one in attendance because those kinds of things were better done in solitude. What if he was a ghost? her brain had suggested, and she'd run with that, holding a séance, and then partway through _that_ realized how dumb it was sitting there, surrounded by smoking candles and sitting in her yoga pose. Cutting short the fun, she'd headed to the library, hurtling through the archives there, not just for the history of her house, but the whole neighborhood, if anyone had been murdered there before her parents had moved in.

Nothing had popped up. And also, the theory didn't mesh with the fact that she was seeing him everywhere, not just in her home.

"You've been following those missing persons cases too much," Caroline said. "This is how you're dealing. Delusions. Your Grams and her creepy pagan talk doesn't help."

"Right, because hallucinating is a thing I do when the evening news is too tough for my virgin eyes." Bonnie chewed her lip in thought. "You know, Care, the only one in denial in this room is you."

Caroline stilled then, her eyes icy, but she wasn't looking at Bonnie. Instead she nodded to Elena. "Wanna duet?" she asked.

Doubtful, Elena picked up the other mic.

The speakers drew out a soft, slow ballad.

 _"Each day through my window, I watch him as he passes by,"_ Caroline sang, her smile taunting. _"And I say to myself I'm so lucky he's so fly,"_

Elena froze, staring at Bonnie helplessly. She dropped the mic, resting it on the table.

Bonnie started laughing, because why not? Her friend being a bitch was sometimes the kick she needed to get her ass in gear. Their lives were the opposite of well right now, all of them, and they came here to blow off steam. Not feud some more. Meeting Caroline's challenging stare, she picked up the mic then moved to stand beside Elena, now smiling hesitantly, as the next words sprang up on the flat screen before them.

 _"But it was just my imagination,"_ she and Elena crooned together, and she smiled as the brunette broke off giggling. _"Running away with me...tell you it was just my imagination running away with meeee..."_

The night wore on, and another round or four of drinks later, it was hard to remember just why her friends were fighting, or what the hell she was so damn worried about.

They tripped to the cab and one by one went home, happy with each other and the world, and when Bonnie stumbled inside the quiet, dark house, she giggled at herself. "Shhh," she whispered, tripping up the stairs and bumping into the framed print hanging on the wall, of some artsy fartsy photograph that her dad found meaningful but she always thought looked like Snoopy's doghouse.

She was alone again tonight. Fortified with alcohol, the thought didn't grip her with anxiety.

Her bed was soft and cozy when she fell on it, pillows cradling her face.

-oOoOo-

No sex for over a decade and a half had worked wonders for his self-control. The first few years he'd taken to carrying Playboy mags around his backpack along with some porn tapes. Then as the years racked up and his internal calendar marked off his two thousandth and change straight day of being trapped alone with no warm, wet vagina or lipsticked mouth in sight to bury himself inside-it just...stopped being a priority. He no longer even had the Playboys or the porn tapes, having ditched them years ago.

Anyway, he still had his imagination, which was fairly impressive. And reruns of Baywatch to catch on any television during primetime hour.

Because he hadn't turned into a eunuch, but there was a point where self-reflection led to places that put sex somewhere in the middle of his needs. Maybe if he'd been sixteen, he might've been masturbating on the hour every hour in this hellhole. But at eternally twenty-two, somehow he'd made his peace with the situation.

Bonnie fucking Bennett disturbed that peace. Not just by intruding on his world, and breaking mirrors-her magic somehow able to do permanent damage to things that otherwise would've reset-but by simply looking the way she did. It bothered him.

Way too fucking much. At a time when he needed to be his most clear-headed.

For the first time in years, he had to pull out some tapes, and gorge on Baywatch, and spend extra time taking care of needs. Going on a handjob bender for a few days in a row there, especially after her bikini day. And he was proud of himself, because each time his treacherous brain slid into images of her while he sated himself, just as quickly he pulled up some other busty bare-assed woman to dwell on, so he never once climaxed with her in mind.

Not while he was awake, anyway.

He was just a man, after all.

Sitting at the kitchen counter, he stabbed at his plate of eggs and bacon with irritation, willing himself to enjoy the breakfast he'd made. Coffee rose in a steam from his mug, and he sipped at it, enjoying the burn on his tongue.

Anyway, it would've happened to him no matter the woman. It could've been _any_ woman to set off this reaction. He'd gone too long without the company of one. That she was a Bennett meant nothing except that she would be instrumental in any future plans to get the fuck out of here. So he would need to play nice.

Messing with her head could come later, when he got out. After he found his father, and the rest of his asshole coven, and decorated Portland streets with their entrails.

It was going to take time, he realized. She was slow to pick up on things, and fearful. Weeks had passed since that first encounter, and she didn't even seem to know the power she could wield over-

"Hi."

His fork clattered down, the sound filling the room as he shot up, his head spinning.

To find Bonnie, her face pressed up against the mirror hanging over the family room table, so close that her nose was slightly smooshed.

"Kai."

Quickly taming his shock, he walked slowly over, movements careful so she wouldn't shy away from him.

"Hi, Bonnie," he replied, voice low and breaking as if from disuse.

Behind her was her darkened room, clearly night in her world, and her bed was rumpled as if she'd just freshly rolled off it. He made out a sequined top, and she still had make-up and her hair was styled but equally messy. In her eyes was the telltale haze of someone who'd probably been a little too trigger happy with her shots.

His tongue rolled into his cheek, amusement hitting him.

"You're drunk?"

"Buzzed." Her nose squashed some more, and he saw it was true. She wasn't missing much, despite the liquor. Around him were the same streaks of bloodied prints and smears from that night. She took all of it in, her head bobbing up and down, like she was confirming something to herself.

"You're a killer. This is where you did it. I..." Her eyes shut, and he caught those long lashes again fluttering, and his hands itched to touch it, or maybe pluck them off. If he could drag her through that mirror just then, he really didn't know which urge would win out. "I see this house all the time."

He put his hands in his pockets, waiting for the spiel, expecting boredom to hit because the girl was going to start with her accusations and judgment and really, after fifteen years, this would be his first conversation with another real person. A girl who couldn't keep up. What a damn let down.

"Four kids, right? Your own siblings."

That one got him. Brows raised, he stepped closer.

"And now you're being punished."

He stalked forward, hands ripping out of his pockets, raised towards the glass.

"Is this a world where monsters go?"

His hands were reaching for the mirror, but that question had him faltering, in the way she said it. Real curiosity carried in her tone, and laced with the revulsion in her face was something else, that kept her from looking completely like his parents or Jo or his other siblings used to, whenever they looked at him.

"Why?" he asked, chuckling darkly. "You know any other monsters to send over? I guarantee they won't like playing in my sandbox."

What definitely kept the boredom away was her shuttered gaze, and it was the first time in roughly fifteen years that intrigue hit him, so unfamiliar that he couldn't place it at first, except as a tightening in his gut that reverberated outwards, making him tense but not in an unpleasant way.

"Huh." Then he narrowed his eyes. "Tell ya what, Bonnie Bennett. Let me outta here?"

Her distrustful face retreated slowly from the mirror.

"I'll take care of your monsters for you."

But she was gone. Something dark had fallen there, in place of her and her room. Dark and thick, in argyle plaid pattern. He peered closer.

A wool blanket.

* * *

A/N: Karaoke scene inspired by Sens8 and also the ep where no-humanity Caroline and Stefan went super evil and inflicted torture by...singing? LOL (O_o)

Thanks for the feedback, guys. :)


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

 _Haunted_

She was back at the car wash, arguing with Tiki, except now it was night time and the girl standing before her holding out the broom insisting that Bonnie do pavement clean-up...was drenched from head to toe in blood.

"I'm in charge," Tiki said, grinning, the whites of her teeth and her eyeballs stark against her red-streaked face. Bonnie cringed away, watching as the girl's teeth suddenly sharpened.

"What happened to you?" Bonnie asked, her fingers reaching out despite her growing fear of the girl. They brushed hands, Tiki's form shifting, losing a few inches, the parts of her skin not covered in blood fading into a paler hue.

"I don't know." The girl stalked closer, and Bonnie saw it wasn't her squad co-captain, but someone who hated cheerleaders, and pep, and ran with a completely different crowd. Someone who'd gone missing recently. "I'm hungry."

"Vicky..." Bonnie walked towards her.

"What's wrong with me?" asked the taller girl, grabbing Bonnie, staining her forearms with red fingerprints.

Sparks shot up from the water on the ground, running a line of flames towards the car sitting behind Vicky.

"Let go," Bonnie pleaded, struggling as a firm grip pushed her head back painfully and Vicky's head descended towards her neck.

An explosion rocked them apart, the car behind them engulfed in fire. Vicky cowered away from the flames, but Bonnie couldn't move, her eyes glued to them, calling them closer to her with a hand. They listened, the flames pitching up and towards her, bathing her skin, wrapping around her fingers in a soft caress.

"Help me?" came the strangled whisper from somewhere on the ground.

Bonnie stared down, dazed and trying to remember what was at her feet, this bloodied form crouched in a fetal position.

"Congratulations," came the low, amused voice nearby.

She whirled, the fire rising higher around her hands, almost jumping from her fingers towards the source of the sound. A tall figure stood several feet away, leaning against a gas pump with his hands tucked into his pockets.

"This time you didn't run away," Kai drawled. "Totally handled that."

Then he smiled, offering a world of mockery in his gaze.

"Shame it's not real."

A bloodcurdling scream tore the air, and she knew she'd made a mistake, turning her back to Vicky. Now the girl towered up, her eyes tinged with blood, the skin around them cracked into black lines, and those sharpened teeth were longer, stretched past the limits of normal human canines.

But they weren't aimed at Bonnie, and she watched with a slackened jaw as the girl suddenly appeared before Kai, attacking. Without looking at all bothered, he ducked her punch, then swung a familiar bat up, hard, straight at Vicky's face.

"No!" Bonnie cried, but it landed and the girl's head-

She woke then, her eyes shooting open to find her room bathed in morning sunlight, a vague scent of something burning drifting to her nose. Confused, Bonnie sat up, not groggy but trying to find her bearings after that dream.

At the bottom of her bed, low flames flickered up from the sheets.

Yelping, she leapt up then whacked at the small fire with her pillows. The smoke alarm blared out while she did so. She paid it no mind, smacking at the flames until they died out, and all that remained was the blackened remains of once cream sheets with buttercup prints.

"Oh, geeze," she muttered, covering her face with her hands moments later. "Get it together, Bonnie."

She had been making progress, too. Thanks to an army of blankets and curtains now covering every mirror in the house, the last few days had gone more smoothly, as she tried to prioritize her problems. First was the magic issue, and right on its heels was schoolwork that she'd fallen behind on, especially her AP classes. Her dad would be thrilled to know about that, especially combined with his excitement over her latest extracurricular activities involving witchcraft.

Her, her dad, and her Grams-really at a good place right now, so good that the two adults in her life could barely manage to stay civil on the phone for more than a few minutes at a time. The one or two times during the week that she and her father actually sat at the dinner table together, their conversation was so stilted Bonnie felt like they were a Stepford family, except she and her father were the robots, with the mother permanently offline, a retired model gathering dust in the basement, out of sight and out of mind.

The comparison came from out of nowhere. She couldn't even remember ever reading the book, and maybe she'd watched the movie once, but it hadn't been one that stuck in her head.

A chilling suspicion gripped her. Bad enough sharing nightmares with a trapped killer, but now if his thoughts were creeping into hers...?

The idea of being linked in that way, to someone so vile, terrified her more than her nightmare. She'd rather face Vicky all over again-Vicky, Stefan and Damon-whatever the hell they were, couldn't possibly be worse than someone who'd murdered his own little siblings.

But that was dumb, and what was it they said-better the devil you know than the one you don't? Touching Vicky in the dream had almost given her that same knot of dread that formed from contact with Stefan. Fooling herself into thinking none of these things overlapped? Dangerous. They were horrifying dots and failing to draw the line between them wasn't just stupid, it was wrong. She had magic-what good was that if not to try to figure out what was going wrong with her town.

Missing people, kids from her own school. Following the arrival of two men now entangled with her friends.

She couldn't keep ducking her head under the pillows here.

It was early enough that she found time to stop at her grandmother's before going to school.

Drinking her comforting tea, resting on soft pillows, listening to the reassuring sound of Grams' voice as she spoke about their Salem ancestors, Bonnie let her nerves ease, almost to the point where she could feel comfortable trying to work the subject of her not-so-friendly phantom into the conversation with her grandmother.

If she could get a word in, since the older woman seemed focused on going over Bennett family history when she wasn't stressing the importance of staying off the grid.

"Grams, everyone knows you're a witch," she finally pointed out.

"They also know it's absurd," her Grams replied calmly, lighting a candle on the table. "It can't be true, I'm just a kooky lady who teaches Occults at the University. Nobody really believes. They just poke fun. I let them." Her grandmother gave her a pointed glance. "Don't let them know the truth."

Caroline's face flitted to mind, her voice filling Bonnie's head. _Your Grams and her boozy crazy talk..._

People like her would be easy to fool for a while, the ones so entrenched in reality and caught up with their own drama-of which there was plenty to go around just then. But someone like Stefan? Not so much. Him and his brother, and that cloud of doom that seemed to hover over them-would they be so quick to write her grandmother off?

Bonnie needed to be ready, her powers on point. She stared at the collection of books waiting on the shelf against the wall. _Malleus Maleficarum, Magna Ritu Pythonissam, Treatise on Nature and Daemonologie_ -and then next to them, smaller volumes of what looked like antique, personal journals.

She _needed_ to get away from all that heavy reading.

"Where's the witchcraft?" she asked hesitantly. "We've been talking history for two days. I want to get to the fun part."

Not even just fun, but necessary. If only so she didn't accidentally burn down the house during sleep.

Her grandmother shot her down with a look.

"It's not meant to be fun. It's real, it's serious, and you must understand it before you practice it." She took a sip of her tea. "Aren't you late for school?"

So, no time to broach the monster in her mirror. Maybe that dream, then? Vicky was missing, after all, and if it was a psychic vision-

Her grandmother rose, looking at her watch. "Oh, shoot, I forgot I have a meeting with the dean this morning. Wait for me, I'll give you a ride to school on my way."

But before her grandmother could leave, a thought hit her. "If those other girls were innocent during the Salem witch trials, why didn't our ancestors stop the burnings at the stake? They had the power."

Her grandmother's back going rigid was how Bonnie knew she'd asked the wrong thing. Without turning around, and her voice far too brittle, Grams said, "We're not gods, Bonnie. Can't save everyone."

Bonnie watched her depart the room, and was it her or was that not the right type of uplifting message to offer a novice? Her mind filled with thoughts of faceless ancestors escaping being burned at the stake, leaving behind innocent human girls to take their place instead, and she couldn't-wouldn't blame her family. But where before she'd been excited at the prospect of learning her craft, now it was tempered with something else.

Bleakness. Like trudging up a hill that never ended. Was that the life of a witch?

Crossing the room, she picked through the tomes that she was starting to resent carrying in her bag.

" _Malleus Maleficarum,_ " she muttered to herself doubtfully, fingering the heaviest one. What did that even mean?

"Hammer of the witches."

Goosebumps forming without thought, she didn't have to look up to know that cold eyes were tracking her. She cursed her own lack of planning. How had she forgotten the small decorative mirror resting right there, in full view of the room?

"Lemme spoil it for you: witches are evil, allied with Satan, and women specifically are susceptible to such depravity," came the low cadence, echoing around the room. "That's the book in a nutshell. Not really an accurate message, or relevant, or helpful. But hey, if professor-grandma says to eat it up, by all means. Don't let a little thing like logic get in the way."

Bonnie kept her gaze away from the mirror as she dropped the book inside her backpack, then slid the rest of the stack in as well.

"That reading list she gave you? Won't have anything about how to stop that pesky habit of setting fire to things even when you're in la-la-land."

She sighed, then, because why did this child-killer have to make sense? In her confusion, she turned slowly, keeping her profile to him.

"What do you know about any of this?" she asked, already dreading how he might answer, because of the way he talked-smug, like he had a secret that he really couldn't wait to hold over her head.

"Wow, she _speaks_."

Bad idea, on so many levels. Chit-chatting with him wasn't anything she'd put on her to-do list this morning. Sure, he looked normal. The cargos and absurdly bright tee and dark hoodie with the clean cut face and smirk. If she were Caroline she might've started flirting with him, if Elena she would've mistaken him for the boy-next-door. Maybe a few months ago, just as herself, she might've tentatively asked a few friendly questions to get more of his story.

But that was before, and now saddled with the knowledge that there were unknown things that went bump in the night that could hurt you, and that _she_ was a supernatural creature herself with the ability to bump back against those harmful things?

It was enough, having Stefan and Damon orbiting her friends, a pair of unwanted Plutos that threw their universe off balance.

No need to add a third.

He must've read her next move, but she ignored his suddenly urgent, "Wait-"

And sped out of the house, carting the now-enormous bag on her back, yelling out, "I'll be outside, Grams!" and shut the door with a resounding bang.

-oOoOo-

For someone so young, she was all scruples, her moral ground so high that even Sheila Bennett seemed intent to bring it down a notch.

"We're not gods...can't save everyone."

 _Where was that mentality fifteen fucking years ago, old woman?_

If only she knew the kind of nightmares her young, impressionable granddaughter was having. Bonnie's nocturnal flights of fancy were starting to irritate him as much as that patently Bennett rectitude she sported like an accessory. When it wasn't some inane scenario involving her two vapid besties, it was a terror sequence straight out of a horror movie, where a figure drenched in blood and sporting inhuman features stalked her while yammering incoherently about her hunger problems.

Predictable she wasn't, and trying to gauge Bonnie's next move turned into a frustrating hobby, stalling him from making his own.

At least it was mildly entertaining. Fifteen years of watching the same shows on television, and this new one set in Mystic Falls ended up being less _Saved by the Bell_ and more _Twilight Zone_.

Then there were all the new things, the glimpses he got of just how much the world had left his ass behind. It was what hadn't changed that surprised him most, though. No new colonies on the moon, something that as a kid he'd sort of hoped would happen, a vague, dumb idea that carried into adulthood, much like people held onto the hope of someday winning the lottery. And California still in one piece, not sunk under water after the big one-shocker, that. Lack of Marty McFly hoverboards kind of sucked, too. That was something he'd looked forward to trying.

Instead, there were all these tiny little gadgets that people talked into, and played games and watched movies on, with just a few swipes of their fingers on the screen.

Progress wrapped around too many small things. People were just narrow minded like that.

He really wanted to try those new computers, though.

When he wasn't preoccupied with thoughts of escape, he tried to envision ways where he could get unobstructed, uninterrupted time just taking in those changes. There had to be a way to reach Bonnie somehow, so that could happen. To convince her that this boogeyman didn't necessarily mean to take a bite.

Not yet, anyway.

He needed to be more patient, given that this was also his first view of the real world in so long-

-and wherever the hell _that_ thought came from, he had no idea, but he wouldn't hesitate to shove it back up whatever prison deity's ass had produced it.

Why the fuck would he need to be patient? He'd already waited 5,600 plus days.

But wait some more, he did, whiling time away by gaining a better feel for his new environment. He'd driven out to Virginia days ago, entering the empty, sleepy little town with the large colonial houses dotting the landscape, mixed with groupings of Victorian row houses and bungalow neighborhoods the closer he got to downtown. Clusters of businesses and parks enlivened the otherwise nondescript area, and the general feel here was one of a bygone era, when people called out to each other from across the street and didn't bother to lock their doors.

If there were people around, they would've probably been hanging around their porch swings, sipping on lemonade or something equally lame.

On the outskirts of town were several enormous mansions, one of them a Gothic looking manor that, when he looked up its history, wasn't surprised to learn had served as a boarding house. He bypassed it in favor of exploring downtown, eventually settling for an industrial looking loft that was only a short jaunt to the diner.

Somewhere in the area was Sheila Bennett's cottage, and that shit was on mystical lockdown, cloaked in a similar way to his family's home.

Fucking paranoid pair of weirdos, his dad and Bonnie's grandmother.

The apartment had mirrors in every room, most of them large, and the rest of the furnishings were well appointed, and the fridge stocked with almost untouched Chinese takeout. He ate that for dinner, surrounding himself with mystical texts-the useful kind, that carried actual rituals and spells for practice.

Soon, he was going to bring Bonnie to his side. Girl needed to fucking figure things out. She wasn't going to learn shit from her grandmother, and whatever was terrorizing her sleep was not something normal. Not that any of her troubles really concerned him, but if she was his ticket out, he was willing to scratch her back first, so long as eventually she would return the favor.

Tit for tat, that was the way of things with magic.

Lesson number one, for the little Bennett witch.

Later, seated on the couch watching television, fear rushed over him from out of nowhere, just at the part when Mulder and Scully were about to crack the case of who murdered the scientist. It welled up, that unfamiliar sense of tightness in his sternum and he blinked at the screen, knowing it wasn't the show.

"Awesome," he muttered, closing his eyes.

A broom handle jutted out from inside a large cauldron filled with ice and soda cans, and a pale handpicked through it, popping one can open. Tracking the owner's face, he found the Melrose Place extra, sharp smile in place as his hand snaked out, snatching at the amber necklace around Bonnie's neck that peeked out between blonde hair and a black bustier-

-and what the fuck was this girl wearing now?

Quickly, Kai took in the others, saw their costumes, and he remembered...Halloween.

The air sizzled, the other man's hand scorched by the stone on the necklace.

"Phew," the other man blew out a breath in shock, but before he could make another move, Bonnie broke true to form.

She ran.

Still sharing head space with her, Kai waited until she settled in the car before he broke it, quickly moving to the nearest mirror in the loft. Then he was looking out at her from the rear view mirror of her car, her eyes closed as she leaned back on the car seat, breathing uneven, the pointed hat and her blonde wig askew, her short witch costume riding up as the bustier showed the rapid rise and fall of her cleavage.

"Originality's not your forte," escaped his mouth, regretting the glib line as soon as it was out.

She didn't startle or gasp or show any reaction except to open her eyes and stare mutely back at him.

He looked away, trying to regroup.

"That necklace is important," he said, going on a hunch. "You should show it to your granny."

He left the mirror and headed back to the couch, not wanting to miss the ending to the episode of X-Files that he'd already seen two hundred and forty six times. If she wasn't ready to talk, he wasn't in the position to make her, but like any cornered animal who hadn't been fed properly, the right kind of bait would eventually get her to drop her guard and follow his trail.

-oOoOo-

The necklace was junk, she'd been so sure. Or maybe that had just been wishful thinking.

She sat cross-legged on the bed, in the spare room of Grams' cottage that had all but become her room, really, with her clothes filling the closet and other personal items scattered around, including a new bookshelf with updated reading material consisting of mystical texts.

The last of the trick-or-treaters had knocked well over several hours ago, and her grandmother had gone to bed. Bonnie was too keyed up to do the same, so there before her lap was the large tome with a picture of her ancestor. The woman whose necklace Bonnie now wore, according to Grams.

Emily Bennett.

The entry on her wasn't exhaustive, with too many large gaps in her life, but it was enough to fill a few pages, and by the end of it, Bonnie was sure of two things. The woman had been powerful, and had made some poor choices in friends. Something about that unnerved Bonnie. Had Grams orchestrated this somehow? In some roundabout magical way bringing the necklace to Damon's attention, and then in turn Caroline's, only to finally have it end up with _her_. Just to circle back to that night weeks ago, when her grandmother suggested making new friends herself.

She flipped through more pages, glancing through page after page of ancestors and a series of unsmiling faces with hard eyes. Perky bunch, her family.

Her hands went up, rubbing at her own, and briefly she wondered when the day would come that she'd look like them.

By then, would she still be connected to _him_?

She shivered, then shut the tome and closed her eyes, flopping back in bed in sudden exhaustion, but not bothering to change into her pajamas yet because this was just a rest, and soon she'd rise and shower and go through the motions of winding down. As tired as her body was, her brain still didn't seem to understand that it was closing time.

Re-opening her eyes to sit up, she blinked blearily around, not even surprised to find that somehow, she was no longer in bed, or even in her grandmother's cottage.

Instead, she was back at school, standing in front of the lockers.

"This again," she muttered.

She'd fallen into another dream. Of course, and this time who knew what latest creature would star? Maybe Wendigo, and as that thought swept over her, steady footsteps approached from around the corner of the hallway, paired with a looming shadow that grew larger as it neared.

Despite herself, and common sense, her own feet led her towards the corner, and slowly but surely she knew yet another blood-drenched entity was going to introduce itself to her, and she braced herself for impact.

Almost in slow motion, she turned the corner with care, her eyes almost reluctant to look up-

Freezing, not necessarily with shock, but more disbelief that there was no blood. No fangs. No misshapen creature.

Just _him_. The child murderer, in pajama pants, a plain white tee, socks, and with his hair tousled. Looking not unlike an overgrown child himself.

He blinked back at her, eyes running along her form quickly before they returned to her face, and a myriad of things crossed his gaze then, none of them anything she wanted to explore. She should've changed out of Caroline's dumb witch costume, was her main thought just then.

"Trick or treat?" he taunted, smiling.

"Get out of my head," she said warily, backing away from his deceptively harmless looking form.

"I would," he said, stepping forward, "but you keep inviting me in it."

"I didn't."

He shrugged, hands up and around as his glance took in the walls. "One of us is not a-Timberwolf, is it? It's hard to tell sometimes, I didn't get a good look at the mascot printed on those cheerleading outfits. Or maybe I just get totally distracted."

His smile turned predatory, his body creeping forward to match her retreat, and she knew she'd have been better off running into Wendigo after all.

All her backing away had been a wasted strategy; her back hit the lockers with a resounding bang, giving him the chance to close the distance between them in a few short steps, before he stood scant inches away. She winced, even though he only stood before her, keeping his hands at his sides as his empty gaze turned thoughtful, studying her.

"I once knew a guy that kept a timberwolf as a pet, isn't that funny?" he said randomly.

"Oh, how nice."

"Not really. Turns out, even in captivity the old dog still retained his natural born instincts. To roam, and hunt." He shook his head, chuckling in amusement. "So this guy, he gets married, wife gets pregnant, they have the baby-cute, roly-poly thing-"

She pushed him away, without thought, and he stumbled back under the force of it, laughing.

"Your story's not funny."

"I'm not even done telling it. And did you just touch me?" Lightning quick, he was back in her personal space, closer than before, his hand hovering up, a finger nearly brushing her cheek. "Manners, Bonnie. You should keep your hands to yourself. We haven't even been properly introduced."

She willed herself not to make a sound, or show fear, because that was what he wanted-a reaction, to give him power, because how long had he been trapped wherever the hell he was? Probably with nobody else around to terrorize, since every time she saw into his world, he was all alone.

The thought gave her courage, and piqued her curiosity.

How long _had_ he been all alone?

"Don't," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "Scaring people is your thing, right? You're joining a growing club."

"So I gathered."

"If you scare me off, I'll find a way to break whatever's letting us see each other. That'll be my first project as a witch."

She knew it, the exact moment her threat registered, and oh, it really didn't make him happy. It was in the sudden flare of his nose and the dimming of that gleam in his eyes. Followed moments later by him stepping back, his hands up, a rueful smile in place. She blinked, shocked by her nerve and even more that it got her what she needed.

Breathing room.

"My point is," he said, "that furball you call mascot isn't mine. This isn't my school. Not my dream. All you, Bonnie." Then he waved to his own get up. "I was hunky-dory in my own head, when you decided to pull me into yours. Miss me?"

But she had no reply to that, just kept staring at him, a frown growing on her face, because other voices were carrying now, and one of them-a woman's, low and polite but firm-was familiar. The assistant principal, Mrs. Linden.

Without a word, she moved to follow them, and deep in her gut grew satisfaction when he silently followed her, but keeping a wary distance and with a purposely lazy stride that she was sure was fake.

He was as curious as she was.

"-missing immunization records, and we do insist on transcripts," came Mrs. Linden's voice.

Why did this sound familiar?

Bonnie pulled to a stop before the office, staring through the doors, and the rush of déjà vu had her glancing around, expecting to see Elena's smitten face beside her, staring in appreciation at the black leather-clad back standing inside the office.

But no. Just Kai. Once again. With a brow lifted towards the new arrivals.

"Please look again," said the low, almost hypnotic voice from the office, and now Bonnie saw what she'd missed the first time.

Stefan taking off his glasses as he spoke to the older woman.

Running inside, she rushed Stefan but avoided touching him. No, what she wanted was a closer look at this moment that had bypassed her notice before, so she pushed nearer, squinting at his eyes, but there was nothing there, no magic or obvious sign of anything weird.

"I'm sure everything you need is right there."

Then she peered at the other woman, Mrs. Linden who almost never looked anyone in the face since she never had the time, but right at that second, seemed almost in a trance as her eyes locked squarely onto the Salvatore's.

The woman glanced down, intoning like a zombie, "You're right. So it is."

Drawing a slow exhale of misgiving from Bonnie, because now that she was up close and personal, the file in the other woman's hands was one page thick, and nothing close to resembling transcripts or shot records.

Bonnie paced. How had she missed this?

"Stupid, Bonnie," she mumbled to herself, remembering the conversation with Elena. Hot back, her ass. Seattle. Guitar. Oh, she was so, so stupid.

"Problem?" came the cheerful voice. One she'd almost forgotten, which was stupid, too.

"Too many," she replied. "You're one of them."

Kai angled a speculative glance at Stefan, narrowed eyes taking in the other man's attire and posture as the scene carried on like she and Kai weren't there at all.

"Neat trick," Kai finally said, nodding to Stefan. "Hypnotist, or witch, or your secretary's got a thing for broody adolescent males-"

"Assistant principal," she cut in, distracted.

Stefan during that dinner with Elena had known a lot about Salem witches. Could that be it? He was like her? She did feel a sense of affinity towards him, even now. She'd be lying if she didn't admit that there was something about him that was...trustworthy. Despite the obvious misery and death that contact with him revealed, there was an innate decency to him-

"Nah, he's not a witch," Kai said, easily guessing her thoughts. "I wasn't serious when I suggested it."

"How do you know?" she asked, skeptical. This was all new to her, so she wouldn't discount the idea no matter what he said. More importantly, how he always sounded so sure of himself whenever the topic of witchcraft came up was telling, and now she couldn't ignore the rampant neon lights blaring out to her.

The other two forms faded away just then, leaving the office empty except for her and Kai, facing each other.

"Hmm. You want answers." He tapped his chin, frowning down with fake solemnity. "I want out. I'm seeing a really good opportunity here for me to say 'this is the start of a beautiful friendship.'"

She almost gave in, was on the verge of dropping her guard and letting loose a barrage of questions, hoping that he would answer even just one or two. Almost, because she caught the flicker of his gaze, brief but not brief enough, a tiny moment of heat in those cold eyes when they lowered back to her costume.

She shook her head, whispered, "No more," and shut the dream down.

Waking with a gasp, sitting up in bed, and mad at herself because when the hell had she started looking to the madman in the mirror for answers?

She was going to have to mention it to Grams soon, and just cross her fingers that the confession wouldn't spur her to tell her dad. Much as she loved him, she couldn't honestly say that it wouldn't provoke him into locking both her and her grandmother up in an asylum at this point.

With weary steps, she made her way to the bathroom, flicking the light on and what she found there made her groan and almost backtrack right the hell out.

"Malachai Parker."

Still in the white tee and pajamas from the dream, he now sat inside the bathtub on his end, pillows cushioning his perch on the hard porcelain. His head leaning against the wall kept his gaze averted to the ceiling as he continued in a bored tone, tossing a baseball up and catching it in the other hand with a mitt.

"Twenty-two, but technically I'm older. I haven't aged since I've been stuck here reliving the same day for over fifteen years. It's a prison world, Gemini coven specialty. They banished me, spearheaded by my dear old dad, the coven leader. Right after I killed my four little brothers and sisters." He shrugged, looking away from the ball even as he caught it. "The other three got away."

Bonnie closed the toilet, slumping down to sit.

"My siblings had magic, I didn't. I can only take it, see, and my parents were shitty about coping." Then he chuckled. "So was I, turns out."

His gaze still averted, looking coolly everywhere but at her, he suddenly sat up, and she almost flinched from the movement, but caught herself just in time, and she was sure he hadn't noticed.

The sharing of answers to her unspoken questions ended up making everything worse, she realized. His answers, at least.

His kind of warped was beyond her ability to grasp. Nothing in his tone indicated he had any regret. He was so far gone maybe he wasn't even capable of it.

"Okey-dokey," he said, finality in his voice. "Now you know. Psycho killer. Did my time. If I ever get out, I'll probably go after the rest of my coven who imprisoned me-no, scratch that, I'm a thousand percent sure I will."

"That's a big if."

"Think so?" He scratched at his chin. "I don't know about that. See, Bonnie, whatever this connection is between us sometimes lets me catch drifts of what's going in that head of yours. Maybe if you were a little quicker to pick up on things, you could do the same with me."

"Why would I want to poke around there?"

"Suit yourself." He started tossing the ball again. "But it makes me the devil you know. Meanwhile, your little town's surrounded by ones you don't."

In a nutshell, those were her exact thoughts and the most worrying part was she no longer had that paralyzing fear that he could access them. Did it even take him any effort? Why wasn't she more concerned?

"Sleep on it," he suddenly said casually, lobbing the ball towards her playfully, and her hand raised instinctively to catch it, a thoughtless gesture since there was no way it could pass through the barrier of glass-

-only to suffer another shock when it landed squarely in her uplifted hand.

His jaw slackened, almost comically, and they stared wide-eyed at each other through the mirror. When he hurried to follow the ball, to cross over himself, she hurled it back, absently noting that it was coated in flames-had she done that? Glass shattered, exploding out, shards of it cutting into her arms as she held them up to protect her head.

Her grandmother found her moments later, crouched on the floor, unmoving.

"What happened?"

It was on the tip of her tongue, the truth surging up and needing out, and she was ready to babble, needing to tell her grandmother everything-Kai and his prison world, the nightmares about Vicky, Stefan and his cold creepy touch, all of her own fears about what the hell was happening to her.

Instead, Bonnie feigned embarrassment as she glanced around the bathroom. "I saw a spider. Tried to kill it, and my magic went wonky. Sorry."

Grams eyed her doubtfully, and Bonnie turned away, leaving to find the broom and sweep away the broken glass left in her wake.

"You're trailing blood all over!" her grandmother called, stalling her escape.

She spun and wordlessly returned to the bathroom, covering her arms so blood stopped dripping onto the carpet.

Grams tsked, already holding alcohol and bandaids in her hands. "Have some sense, Bonnie. You don't go cleaning up messes before you take care of yourself. Where's your head at, child?"

Bonnie sighed, wishing for an easy answer.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, guys! Hope you enjoyed the extended Bonkai interaction here. More to come. Does anyone remember that amulet from season 1? I have no idea what happened to it eventually, but I'm going to take liberties with it for this story. Actually, I'm just gonna take a lot of liberties with TVD history. ;)


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

 _162 Candles_

 _"I wanna codor, Kai. Ware da cwayons?"_

 _Blonde hair bound in a messy ponytail, Liv toddled up, Luke in tow with his trademark cowlick sticking out the top of his head. Behind them trailed Joey, headphones resting around his neck, a look of impatience on his face._

 _Kai eyed them all, stuck between a glower and a surprised quirk of his brow. His father had summoned him home for spring break for some as-yet undisclosed reason, so he'd left the studio he rented near the university, driving home with the taste of vomit chronically resting at the back of his throat the entire ride home._

 _His younger siblings past the age of sixteen were at a coven seminar, to which Kai hadn't been invited. The exclusion was nothing new these past few months, but it irked-burned, really. Jo was there, one half of the Gemini twins prepping for the upcoming merge in two months. Why the fuck he wasn't shouldn't have bothered him, not after all this time, yet he spent night after night raging about it, the effects of his tantrum displayed in the current state of his studio._

 _He needed to use his allowance to replace all the broken furniture in his living room. The fridge would need to wait, and anyway, the dents on the front were only cosmetic damages. Spackling the holes in the wall could be his summer project._

 _He'd been lounging on the bed, playing with his new pager and exchanging messages with the girl he'd slept with at a party last week. She was new in town, taking classes at the community college, with no ties to the coven, or his college, or his high school. In other words, clueless about the general consensus that had locals eschewing him as the town pariah. The perfect diversion for the dog days of summer. She was smart, too. Would be a thrill to fuck with her head-or just fuck, once the week was out and he could escape from his family._

 _It was day three and he'd barely seen any of his younger siblings whose ages barred them from the seminar. Rare that they found their way into his old room, until that moment._

 _"Get out."_

 _"I wanna pway dominoes," Luke said, pushing Liv aside._

 _"I wanna chaaaaange."_

 _"Get them outta here, if you know what's good for you," Kai said lightly, tossing a cold smile at his teenaged brother._

 _"Dude, they've been like this all day. They're driving me nuts."_

 _"Oh, so you wanna see them drive_ _ **me**_ _nuts? We won't have the same reaction, I promise."_

 _"They just-" Joey's shoulders slumped. "You haven't been here in months."_

 _Kai twiddled his thumbs, staring blankly as the boy stammered out something about spending time together. He was serious, the gawky thing, and Kai couldn't help laughing because wow, Joey was really dumb. Kai looked at bright blue skies beckoning outside and imagined tossing the lot of them out through the window. Weren't kids supposed to be playing outdoors anyway? They would survive the two-storey drop-give or take a few sprains and breaks-and could go scrambling around the yard._

 _Liv and Luke started smacking each other on the face, playing tug of war with the box of dominoes Luke held in his plump fingers, until Liv shoved Luke. He landed on his ass and bumped his head against the nightstand by Kai's bed, the dominoes spilling out of the case. When the toddler started bawling, Kai grimaced._

 _"Hey, say sorry!" Joey yelled at Liv, inviting an epic tantrum. Plopping down beside Luke, her legs went flailing violently. Not to be outclassed, Luke raised his short, dimpled arms, curling his hands into a fist and swinging them wildly._

 _Huge fat tears rolled simultaneously out of both sets of baleful blue eyes._

 _Kai's eye twitched as he rose, stretching and pocketing his pager, which hadn't buzzed for a while now._

 _"Good job," he drawled to his younger brother, now looking panicked as he hovered from one blonde bawling baby to the next._

 _"C'mon, Kai, help me out. I've been with them all week."_

 _"Where's Susie?"_

 _"Sleeping over at a friend's."_

 _"She was smart. You, not so much."_

 _Then, simply on a whim, Kai bent down, crouching beside them, the very picture of howling chubby-cheeked cherubs. He kind of wanted to smother them into silence with a pillow right just then. "Look, if you be quiet, I'll put on that video with the lamb that won't stop singing."_

 _He remembered that was the show Jo put on sometimes, when she had homework and the twins needed to be occupied. His bribe worked wonders on the pair, both miraculously quieting and tears drying. Soon, they were seated on the couch, side by side with their sippy cups in hand, zoned out in front of the terrifying puppet lamb singing the song that wouldn't end._

 _Joey threw a pained look at him when he backtracked out of the room. "Where you going?"_

 _"That's my good deed for the day."_

 _"I got the new Castlevania game. Can't get past the second level. Wanna help?"_

 _His brother was looking far too many shades of pathetic just then, and Kai had nothing pressing to get to, but out of principle he almost declined. Why the hell did he have to put in any time with Joey? Didn't their parents give him enough attention?_

 _But then he remembered the ad for the Bloodlines game. All that pixelated gore. What would it matter, really, to waste some time reminding his brother who exactly was top dawg in the family when it came to anything Sega Genesis?_

 _Shrugging, he made his way to the rec room. "When you can't even get past the sub bosses means you're total shit at the game, Poindexter."_

 _"Whatever, Malachai," came the lame rejoinder, as Joey rushed past him, excited smile on his thin face._

His eyes popped open, wide and without any trace of sleep to rub out whatsoever. Darkness peeped out behind the blinds, giving him a clue that he'd woken well before his usual time. He pulled himself up to sit, his feet finding the floor, but he didn't rise, just stared down at his toes, blinking through a foreign heavy weight settling over his stomach and diaphragm.

"The fuck?" he muttered, hand going up to rest on his chest, where it was growing far too tight to the point that he wasn't sure if he needed fresh air or just a toilet to puke in.

 _Poindexter._

Joey had hated the name so much he adopted his middle one when he reached third grade, and nobody blamed him. It made Malachai sound trendy.

The sharp lines of his brother's angular face floated to mind abruptly. No matter how much he ate, his brother had been at the stage where he could never fill out, a stage that Kai himself had finally outgrown, when he'd turned sixteen. Joey had been a few years shy of finally growing into his real face. Which would've looked a lot like his, Kai realized, suddenly remembering how often people used to find their resemblance uncanny.

His chest tightened more.

"Ow," he mumbled, getting to his feet, and stumbling out of the room.

He knew what would help. Moments later, he stood in front of the liquor cabinet, picking out the bottle of Tequila there. This was how he usually got rid of heartburn.

He made a mental note never to eat tacos as a midnight snack again.

-oOoOo-

"Your grandmother's heading out of town this weekend."

She knew this, and her father knew she did, so Bonnie tried not to stare with impatience, while she waited for him to finish the rest of his sentence. But he was ponderous with it, cutting too long on a piece of chicken breast. Was it possible he was trying to change his mind?

But he'd already given his word that it would happen. It needed to happen, and he couldn't really be thinking of putting a stop to it.

"I guess you're halfway packed to go with her?"

Finally, and spoken with a just a tiny hint of teasing in his eyes. More than she ever hoped for, or really deserved at the moment, considering how cross her expression had turned, while he made her wait.

"All the way packed," she said, beaming now.

He smiled back, a tiny half-hearted effort that meant his permission remained reluctant, and she needed to mind her Ps and Qs until Friday night arrived. Which meant to no more blankets and curtains over the mirrors, since that only reinforced his suspicion that witchcraft was doing a number on her mental stability.

Anyway, she'd found a spell in her grandmother's tomes, one that seemed to work by giving static. She didn't exactly follow the logic of how it worked, but she'd gotten the candles and salt, scrounged around for some lead, and had gathered the largest round-shaped mirror in the house to use as the protective circular surface for use in the ritual. That had been trial and error, then trial and error some more. Yet somehow easier than controlling fire.

Once she'd gotten the hang of it, she stopped seeing _him_. Last time had been the night she'd caught his stupid baseball. Which she'd thrown in the garbage, wishing to have it out of sight and out of mind. Only to have it reappear as soon as she thought she'd gotten rid of it on Tuesday's collection, resting on her nightstand conspicuously by her alarm clock. She tried several times to dispose of it, and each time, it reappeared, innocuous and taunting, and always within a certain radius of her presence.

There was some kind of meaning to it, only she didn't have any inclination to explore it.

Not that it made any difference, anyway. While she'd muted his presence one way, what remained were others. Slightly more insidious, creeping up on her awareness during the light of day, slipping into her subconscious under cover of the night.

No more mirrors only meant she was having far too many out-of-body-but-into-his experiences. Along with taking involuntary peeks into his dreams.

Lately, a lot more of them seemed to be mundane things, involving his family. Memories. And when she realized that, turning their meaning over and over, what surprised her was how his brain offered up a picture of a home, oversized and chaotic but _normal._ Tense, sure. The little she saw of his parents showed plenty of dysfunction, especially between them and Kai, making her glad for her own father, even if he was a workaholic. But his twin sister struck her as genuine and warm, and he had a small army of loud younger brothers and sisters, some cheery, some equally jerky like him. But all of them well and whole and alive and unsuspecting, in his dreams, of the gruesome, terrifying end just around the corner, wearing the face of one of their own.

She never used to think being a single child was an issue, not really, because she liked her space and her time, and had enough friends to make up for it. But getting to witness first-hand how it was growing up with ready-made companions? Remembering how cool and hard Kai's face had looked, much like the porcelain tub he'd sat on, talking about murdering half his family, like the topic was as everyday as tomorrow's weather forecast?

Something cold and unyielding grew from inside her, when she thought of it. If fate and magic got it together and decided to deal him the final blow to obliterate his world, it was easy to imagine watching it all fall apart around his ears, to witness the end of his existence-his total annihilation, without so much as batting an eyelash.

Scary...and sad-just a little. Especially since, after spending an entire night having her grandmother teach her exercises on mental purification and clarity, now she could piggyback on his time a little more smoothly. What she saw should've made her feel guilty. But no. The feeling never came.

He was busy in his little hell. Looking up info on the Salvatores, and Mystic Falls. Giving himself homework. Whatever he'd picked up from her those times he saw the world through her eyes, apparently was enough for him to start building a mock case file of her hometown's VIP.

He'd even tried looking into the Bennetts, but when she took a peek how that progress was coming along, found that somehow he could never find her grandmother's home in his dimension.

Kai was being helpful. Maybe he was aware of her spying on his effort, maybe not, but the end result was the same. Suddenly, she had a few answers. The mental imprints of his research had seared her mind. The Salvatores and their place in the town's history books, their prominence until the mid-19th century, when the line seemed to have ended with the death of the two sons during Civil War. The founding families in the city. Fell's church. All of it, linked somehow. But missing that last piece.

Stefan and Damon-were they from a distant branch of the family tree? Maybe that was something Kai might unearth.

It was more than what she'd had, even just a few nights ago. Because of him. He was trying to hold up his end of whatever incomplete bargain she'd never agreed to with him.

But she had shuffled him to the bottom of her list of concerns. Somehow, she couldn't bring herself to care. Outside of googling his name and the Gemini coven, that is. If only to fact check what he'd shared.

Not surprisingly, there wasn't much to find on the internet about either. She'd watched enough conspiracy movies to smell a cover-up. A return trip to the library proved more useful, the newspaper archives presenting a series of articles from local and national sources detailing the Parker family massacre on the night of May 9, 1994. She'd already gathered that his world was stuck in the nineties, not just from the cars and his outfits but also his pop culture references.

On his coven, the library still came up empty, so she moved on to the grimoires in her grandmother's collections and found enough there to get suitably creeped out. It was in its second millenium of existence and still shrouded in secrecy, despite being one of the largest organized group of witches around. Why hadn't Grams ever mentioned them? The most Bonnie had heard from her was of the nine covens in New Orleans that sometimes banded together, and more often bickered amongst themselves.

But the Geminis, Grams hadn't mentioned a word of them.

Maybe because she figured it would be hard explaining a coven that determined its leadership through some bizarre soul-and-magic-eating ceremony involving twins.

So maybe his family, not so normal after all.

Bonnie tried to put it all out of her head. He wasn't a priority.

There were other things occupying her mind, and for once the main one was something exciting instead of awful.

Grams had invited Bonnie along on a last minute trip out of town, the whole thing so rushed and hushed like they were on a covert mission that Bonnie couldn't help getting a thrill out of it all. Perfect timing, too. With Elena AWOL and Caroline in the on-again phase with Damon, Bonnie welcomed the chance to step outside of their drama.

But she found, as the week waned, that she couldn't leave without seeing Elena, at least. Radio silence from her end never meant anything good.

Missing her all day at school, Bonnie trekked over to the Gilbert home. Jeremy let her in, wordlessly nodding upstairs with a roll of his eyes, before uttering a single, "Good luck."

"Bonnie," came the warm, relieved voice from down the hall. Jenna was walking towards her with a harried look on her face. "Thank God. Hi. Maybe you can get her to come out of her funk."

She smiled at the older woman. "I can try."

How fed-up the two Gilberts looked gave her extra motivation to seek patience, especially when she found her friend huddled under the blankets in her room. Looking, for all the world, much like Bonnie imagined she herself must have, that night of the first mirror encounter with Kai.

Something had spooked her friend, then. It fit.

In grumbling pieces it came out. Stefan. The break up. Elena dreading her own thoughts. Needing a distraction.

That last part stuck, and before she could think too much about it, Bonnie was up and sealing the room from any stray source of wind, shutting windows and the door. Out of the corner of her eye she spied the mirror on the wall and shrugged any concern away. Right now, it was about Elena. Not just distracting her, but maybe getting her to also open up.

Tit for tat. She ripped the pillow open, shushing her friend's indignation.

Soon, the torn pillows lay on the floor forgotten, as they sat on the bed with soft white feathers circling soothingly around their seated forms. Elena's mouth had dropped, but more importantly, her eyes had lightened, wonder pooled in the brown depths.

"It's true, Elena. Everything my Grams told me-it's impossible but it's true. I'm a witch."

Elena gasped, half laughing, touching one of the feathers. "I believe you."

Bonnie waited, willing her friend to say more. If this was Caroline, she might have needed a little more convincing, would've probably scoped out all corners of the room to check for indecipherable wires attached to the feathers. But the brunette accepted it, so easily, and while her friend's complacent understanding was native to her personality-something else was in play. Bonnie could tell.

 _C'mon, Elena. Tell me what you know._

But minutes passed. Nothing. Her friend was amazed, and supportive, and grateful to have Bonnie's trust in sharing such a huge secret.

And her friend stayed mum about her own.

Bonnie went home several hours later, relief and disappointment at war inside her. Great to have one person fully in her corner, stunk that the same person kept withholding info that Bonnie's gut told her was both dangerous and damaging, not knowing.

When she got home, her mood only soured. Her father, on the verge of leaving for out-of-town business, delayed by a phone call from her AP Chem teacher, expressing concern over Bonnie's recent behavior in class. Falling asleep, irritable and snappy lately whenever she was called on for answers, turning in her last few assignments late.

Rudy Hopkins perched against the kitchen counter, waves of anger and concern rolling off his tall form as he studied her. She struggled not to shuffle her feet.

"Your trip is cancelled. I spoke with your grandmother. She knows. She's also going to give you a breather with your...other studies. Spend the next few weeks catching up with your school work."

He walked up, grabbing a firm hold of her shoulders and when she glanced into his lined face, saw that he was in total strict irrational dad mode, when he added firmly, "Be normal, Bonnie."

Right. That was what it boiled down to, of course. What was it Grams had said the other night?

 _"Your father's problem is he lacks imagination..."_

When he left, she ran to the front door, standing in front of it, clutching the talisman around her neck, watching with growing wrath as he strode to the car service waiting at the curb to take him to the airport.

"Thanks, Dad!" she yelled.

Rudy paused briefly, his form rigid.

"Throw commands around, then leave! You're awesome!"

He resumed his pace, disappearing into the car with a glance at her, his head shaking in angry disbelief. She could tell he was fighting down the impulse to launch himself out of the car and yell right back.

But he needed to make his flight.

Grams stopped by later with take-out from Bonnie's favorite Italian restaurant. By then, she'd been buried in her textbooks because after an hour of moping and rallying internally against the unfairness, Bonnie got sick of herself and decided to get the catch-up out of the way. She intrinsically hated falling behind, her inner nerd couldn't stand it, plus chemistry and the elements touched on portions of witchcraft and left her feeling smug, finding this loophole that her father could do nothing to prevent.

"Well, you're looking a lot perkier than I expected," Grams said, depositing the bag of food on the table while Bonnie set the plates.

"Magic and science go hand in hand," Bonnie said, cheeky. "Dad said I'm supposed to take a break from studying the witchy joo joo, but not my fault if chemistry gives me a better understanding of it. I'm just following his orders." Then she plopped down and started serving them both heaping piles of penne a la vodka. "You did say he's short on imagination."

"Don't go quoting me on that." Then her grandmother's eyes widened. "My goodness, Bonnie. Since when did you get so hungry? If I didn't know any better, I'd think I'm feeding a quarterback."

Bonnie stopped, eyeing her plate, seeing how much she'd doled out. Grams was right. When had she gotten so damn greedy with food?

But Grams smiled, and they shared a peaceful dinner for the most part, since Bonnie chose to ignore the probing looks her grandmother kept sending her way.

"Something's been bothering you, Bonnie," Grams finally said, at the end of the meal. "I've waited all this time, but you're playing at being a turtle. Thought going on the trip would draw you out. With that out of the picture, I'll just need to go the direct route. Now. Anything you know you should be sharing with me?"

She examined her fork with all the fascination it didn't warrant, trying to stall. "Where are you going? You never said."

Her grandmother leaned back in her chair, the unhappy sigh already telling Bonnie that her question would go unanswered.

"One day soon I'll bring you along. You'll find out then."

"So it's witch business."

"You could say that. Officially, I've been out of the game for years. But my presence was requested, and these aren't people that are easy to say no to."

"Who are they? Is it a coven?"

"No. They're the Tribunal." Her grandmother's face turned stony. "Nothing you should concern yourself with right now. That's all you're going to get from me, child. Your turn. I seem to recall you asking me if I've ever seen _weird stuff_? I asked you to explain what that meant. What were you seeing?"

Bonnie fiddled with her food. "Dreams with a lot of blood." True enough, that answer. "Some strange people in them." Again, not a lie. "Vicky Donovan. She was asking me for help."

Grams sat up, the wariness in her face making Bonnie tense. "It's not looking good for her. She's been missing for too long."

Matt's face flashed quickly through her mind, and a wave of sympathy swept out.

"I didn't get any clues or anything," Bonnie said in a rush. "She was all covered in blood and she attacked me-"

Grams leaned forward. "Bonnie," she said carefully. "You need to pay attention to those dreams. If you ever see Vicky around town again, you stay away from her. Do you understand?"

"You think she's alive?"

Grams rose and stayed quiet, ignoring her question, clearly upset but if it had to with Vicky, her grandmother's warning was a study in contradiction. Confused, Bonnie joined her, watching in silence as her grandmother held out a tote.

"Those books I gave you are filled with spells for the novice witch. These grimoires might challenge you a little more, when you're ready for them."

Then Grams gathered the rest of her things, making for the door. "Remember what I said, Bonnie. Keep away from Vicky if she turns up. And those new boys your friends have been hanging around with? Stay clear of them, also. Don't _ever_ let them inside the house. Promise me."

Extracting it, she left but not before giving Bonnie a fierce hug, giving her one last intense furrowed frown, throwing Bonnie into such a state of paranoid confusion that she couldn't go back to her chemistry or any books at all. Not even the new ones with the better spells.

She made her way to the pizza shop instead, grabbing a pie, then found herself knocking at Matt's house. When he answered the door with his trademark easy grin that contrasted poorly with the shadows under his eyes, Bonnie offered up the box of pizza and a small, sad smile.

It was when he disappeared for a minutes to the bathroom that Bonnie made use of her familiarity with the house. She snuck inside Vicky's room, rummaging through her closet, and found a scarf with stray long dark blonde hairs stuck on it. Shoving it inside her purse, she was back downstairs, serving Matt his slice when he walked back inside the kitchen, smiling gratefully back at her.

-oOoOo-

After a shitty week spent fighting the sense of suffocation growing in his chest, he almost convinced himself that at the chronological age of thirty-seven, maybe he would join the ranks of early middle-aged men who dropped dead of a heart attack.

But...his body wasn't quite there, was it? Only his brain, and even that was an iffy thing.

In a rare moment of lucidity since the week started, after the effects of his last bottle of gin had worn out, he dismissed the idea. His heart? Rotten. Absolutely. But not rott _ing_.

Which begged the question, once more-what. the. fuck?

It didn't make sense to him, this gnawing pit beneath his ribcage that radiated outwards, or the accompanying heaviness in his head. Happened every time he thought of his siblings, and that, too, seemed to be more and more lately.

He took to drinking at first, and then running, his legs threatening to give way as his route took him around all of downtown. The day came where he tired of circuiting his immediate vicinity, and he finally drifted further off. Before he knew it, he was dehydrated and dizzy, and surrounded by woods on all sides.

His steps slowing, he trudged north, following the sun, going for hours, aiming for a dry death and surprised to find a private road that looked familiar. Near collapsing, he made his way to the Gothic manor style mansion, breaking through the same window he'd jammed his elbows through multiple times, since arriving at Mystic Falls, in the spirit of research.

Because this was where Bonnie's two headaches were probably currently using as their stomping grounds, although he had yet to confirm it because she avoided the brothers as avidly as her other friends seemed to want to orbit them.

Even though she could be dumb at times, when her brain kicked in, she was on fire-literally. It coaxed another unfamiliar reaction from him, but this one he could place, had tasted it a few times, like when he attended the covenant tourneys and got his ass handed to him by the rare witch who figured out how to outwit him during sparring. Begrudging respect, was what it was.

 _Game, set, match._

If only she didn't resort to the same defense mechanisms with him. Irritating, that, since he technically hadn't done anything to her. Which meant she was really fucking smart, because he didn't look half as scary as what he'd seen of the Salvatores.

He broke into the mansion through a side window, gulping down water like a madman before he stumbled to the living room, finding the couch, and when exhaustion claimed him, his last thoughts before he fell asleep were of the annoying fledgling witch.

-oOoOo-

The locator spell failed.

It wasn't tricky, but her nerves were shot, and her prep was off. She had her blood, and an item of Vicky's, along with the map of North America, figuring that the girl, if she was still alive, couldn't possibly have left the continent. Bonnie didn't know why she was so sure of it, or of how she was growing more certain that probably all she needed was a map of the county to find Vicky.

She was here. Nearby. Somehow, Bonnie just knew.

Her hands shook when she reached for the grimoire, flipping to the other side of page, squinting down at the instructions handwritten with care, for the recovery spell.

Locate, for the living. Recover, for the dead.

This spell ran longer. Bonnie threw the book in frustration across the room. She wouldn't be able to do it, the spell needed more juice, more seasoned prep than what she could offer.

Before she could convince herself otherwise, Bonnie closed her eyes, resting her head against the wall, and tugged herself into his perspective, the effort proving far easier than the last couple hours she'd just spent trying to find the missing girl.

Where she found herself, just in line with her luck, was smack dab in the middle of a graveyard. Upside, it was broad daylight, so the creep factor not too bad, except it was pouring and naturally, she was already soaked.

In the distance, she saw a press of figures, somber in their black clothes and under cover of black umbrellas. The priest was a tall figure in black. A procession of cars in the distance, parked beneath the shade of massive oaks, all black.

The quartet of sleek coffins, arranged side by side, around which the mourners stood-also black. One of them, smaller than the others.

Stumbling forward, her eyes made out a few familiar faces. Kai's twin sister, and his father and mother, surrounded by a sea of strangers. Only his sister cried, while the mother and father smiled beatifically out at the crowd, and above their shoulders rose wings, black and tattered, beating away the rain. The mourners formed a circle then, surrounding the priest, and he shook a container over the coffins, sparkling and drifting even with the rain beating down.

The two parents stepped forward, their demon wings hovering over the coffins, prying them open as the sparkling dust settled over four bodies.

All of them suddenly reanimating, sitting up slowly, pale and puffy, the effects of embalming fluid obvious in their blank faces that abruptly turned, as one, to where Bonnie stood. Their arms raised, pointing to her, their mouths dropping open in a silent scream.

Bonnie shrank back, horror gripping her gut, then her feet worked, and she ran, the squishy ground tripping her up, but she caught herself. There was nowhere to go except for the stone building ahead, its windows dark and gloomy, the doors closed. She pushed through, glancing back, seeing four figures quickly following, gliding, their feet hovering over the grass.

Bile rose in her throat.

She closed her eyes, willing herself out of his head. He was having a nightmare, but where the hell was he?

Then she heard it-moans.

Bonnie slammed the doors shut behind her, then ran to follow the sounds.

Moans and grunting, and Kai's voice murmuring.

He'd probably hidden somewhere, away from his dead siblings.

A door at the end of the hall with a privacy window on the top half revealed moving forms behind it. The sounds grew louder.

She barged in.

And gaped in total shock when she found Kai in a suit, but his pants around his knees, burying himself repeatedly, mindlessly, against a woman, her legs wrapped around his hips. They were on a desk, and all Bonnie could see were brown shapely calves and black stilettos knocking rhythmically against his tightened ass muscles.

Bonnie was rooted to the spot, blinking as one of his hands fisted in his companion's hair, dark, long, and wavy, trailing over the edge of the desk. Her face was hidden, but her gasps echoed around the room, while her hands raked his butt, squeezing.

Kai groaned. "Bo-"

"Hey, asshole!" Bonnie shouted, appalled and terrified all at once.

Kai yelped, turning to face her and she watched his wild eyes turn exasperated at something over her shoulder. When she looked over, terror won out. Four child specters approached from the hall, gliding eerily, their faces still formed in mute expressions of shock, their eyes wide and milky.

Kai raised his hands, the door shutting in their faces, a steel wall forming before them. "Busty!" he barked. "Blonde!"

The bumbling words had her frowning, as Bonnie backed further into the room. Kai struggled with his pants, his gaze stuck on the desk.

Where Pamela Anderson in a red lifeguard suit appeared, the other woman whose face she'd never caught having magically disappeared.

A series of words ran through her mind, _fuck_ and _this_ and _bastard_ among them, but she didn't have time to give them voice, while she ran to the windows to try to break them open.

"Quicker escape route available," he said coolly, just as his dead siblings floated in, converging on them.

Kai's hands wrapped around her wrist loosely, and he closed his eyes. Bonnie's heart raced, the pulse of her fear a wild, staccato beat threatening to erupt from her ribcage. A small, pale, horrifying face neared her own, and Bonnie was sure she was about to die, her mouth opening to beg, or scream, or pray-she didn't even know.

Suddenly, the figure froze in place.

A fifth presence revealed itself, just there under the shadows of the hallway, emerging slowly. A woman in a light, floor-grazing dress, with an old-fashioned bonnet framing her head.

"Emily!" Bonnie called desperately.

Her ancestor glanced up, her hand waving. The four figures floated towards her, restful now, their mouths closing, their eyes growing normal, and Bonnie watched in amazement, as four Parker children stared at her, appraising, without any of the hostility that had emanated from their forms just moments ago.

Bonnie opened her mouth again-

-gasping, taking in a lungful of air, when she found herself standing in an unfamiliar living room, cavernous and moody-looking, decorated with antique but sturdy furniture.

Kai was sprawled on a couch, his eyes on her. She returned the appraisal with a disgusted glare, her panic nowhere near dwindling, evident in her shaky legs that found the nearest chair, the one by the fireplace. Dropping wearily into it, she rested her elbows on her knees, keeping the urge to hyperventilate at bay.

"Sooo," Kai said moments later. "What brings you to my neck of the woods, Bonnie?"

She wanted to kill him. Truly. Without any qualms, Bonnie raised her hand, intending to light him on fire.

Nothing happened.

He tsked. "I know that face," he said. "It's one I wear myself, every once in a while. Homicidal. Not sure if it's the right look for you. Doesn't really fit, know what I mean? You're all sunshine and rainbows." When he stood and stalked over to her, she couldn't help but try once more, her frustration skyrocketing when again nothing happened. "I'm much more suited to it."

She ran before he could touch her, but his foot tripped her, and her head was about to hit the mantel when he caught her, his arms gripping tightly.

"Where you going, Bonnie?" His breath hit her cheek, and she turned head away, squirming against his hold, but there was no give to it. "Rude to leave without saying goodbye. Or, ya know, taking me with you."

She butted her head against his chin, shoving him hard and breaking his grip.

With a muttered oath, he stumbled back. Bonnie grabbed the poker in the fireplace, waving it towards him, trying to keep her hands from shaking.

Rubbing his chin, his head tilted, and when he dropped his gaze from her to toy with the leather strap around his wrist, there it went, his smooth transition from cold murderer to harmless college intern at a music company.

His hands up at the elbows, he backed away, dropping into the chair she'd just vacated, slouching casually and studying the poker leisurely.

"Why don't you chill, hmm?" He waved to the liquor cabinet. "Grab a drink, I won't card you."

Her magic was gone here, and she was in his world. Not his head. How that happened, who knew, but she needed out of the house and away from him. With a firm grip on the poker, Bonnie retreated, keeping her gaze on him the entire time, even at the point where she was at the front door.

Waving the poker threateningly one last time, she slid outside, shutting it firmly behind her.

Then she made her way down the driveway, running into the forest, only to stop short when she realized where he'd holed up.

The Salvatore boarding house.

Empty, free for her to explore, in a way she couldn't in her world.

Her mind jumbled, stalling her, and what was the point of it? Running away, when she'd voluntarily gone looking for him. And her timing was terrible, he'd obviously been in the middle of some bizarre nightmare that transformed into something else entirely...so why did she want to kill him, exactly?

Not as if her mind didn't present its own share of monsters trying to kill him, those times he'd been the one traipsing through her dreams.

A funeral. He was dreaming of his siblings more and more, and now, in his sick way, attending their funeral.

Again, this meant something, but it wasn't really her business or her problem to dwell on. She had her own. A long list of them.

It boiled down to two things: she needed help, and she was turning desperate enough to try the one person who offered, the only one giving answers without making the process feel like she was forcing teeth out of his mouth.

Already halfway regretting it, Bonnie turned, retracing her steps towards the boarding house. She was trudging through the last few trees when she saw him emerge from the door, getting a clear view of his profile as he looked out.

For once, he seemed bothered, his gaze scanning the area, nothing on his face cold and calm, but a combination of her own aggravation mirrored there and...panic. Plus something else, but she didn't care what, because she realized she was hungry and thirsty, and could do with a proper meal now that she was stuck there.

She trudged through the clearing, feeling his eyes land on her. She didn't bother looking at him until she got to the top steps.

No smug smile on his lean face, no mocking expression. He only stared mistrustfully back.

"Not gonna stab you," she muttered.

"Great."

"I need your help."

"Fine."

Roughly shouldering past him, on purpose, she took the rest of the house in quickly, seeing entrances everywhere.

"Where's the kitchen?" she asked.

Wordlessly, he led her down a hall and she followed, squashing an urge to run him through the back with the sharp end of the iron poker.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for the reviews and the answers on the pendant, guys. I'm on a roll with Bound, kinda want to keep going with the next chapter, but I should finish Ch 30 of Charade first. I'm about halfway through that. Gah. That's the problem juggling multiple stories. It's like having dissociative personality disorder. :/


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

 _Let the Wild Rumpus Start_

She'd read once that looking a tiger right in the eye took away their element of surprise, and could prevent them from attacking. A neat little tidbit that stuck in her head, although when she would get around to testing it on an actual tiger, she wasn't sure. A safari wasn't in the cards for her and her dad, at least not for this year's family vacation.

Still, it didn't hurt to try that theory now.

Kai lacked the orange fur and stripes, but as they stared each other down in the cavernous kitchen of the boarding house, him seated at the dining table, her by the counter on a barstool-something about him reminded her of an animal in captivity. It wasn't restlessness or any type of energy because he sat in the kitchen, slowly picking from his plate. Nothing about him indicating impatience, but instead, the opposite-unhurried.

Calculating.

He was waiting to pounce, seemed like. She felt the weight of a test in his measured gaze. Looking for a weakness. Maybe he'd convinced himself that he found it.

She had a lot-her friends, her father, Grams. None of them here, now, in this prison world.

Here, she could be strong. He could try to kill her, like his siblings, because he had the advantage of brute strength and the experience of-well, being a murderer. But then, if she died, he would still be stuck here.

Crazy that she could even try to guess his thought process. A month ago, it all would have gone over her head. He might even have been able to fool her.

A month ago seemed like a different lifetime.

She finished the last of her leftover lasagna, then left the room without a word. His help she did want, but just then she still wasn't ready to talk, probably would never be although another part of her desperately pushed her to get over herself, to have the conversation already. But his nightmare was still rattling around in her brain-and his sexcapade detour in the middle of it kept popping up, too, making it all worse. He was a guy, though, and he'd gone an insane amount of time without-

Her palms found her face, squeezing her cheeks in an effort to maybe purge thoughts that never should have formed. Why she was trying to rationalize it disturbed her. She didn't feel bad for him. This was her just observing from a detached standpoint, because she was in high school, and had a pretty good idea that thoughts of sex took up half the brain cells of most boys in that age group.

Except...

Twenty-two, he'd said. So he should've already gotten past that phase, but solitary confinement was hell on a person's life, mentally and physically.

Not that she cared. He deserved this. Possibly, it wasn't even enough of a punishment.

Did he even feel a twinge of guilt?

Trudging up the stairs, she headed to the double doors at the end of the hall, pondering the question. Now that they were sharing brains, the answer to that was fuzzy; while he acted like nothing fazed him, she'd bought a clue a that things might have changed. It had for her, so why not him? The nightmares pointed to it-and good, about time. Let him keep having them. Forever wouldn't be long enough for him to go through some mental torture courtesy of his murder victims. His own little brothers and sisters.

She took a breath, trying to put this world's lone other occupant out of her mind as she neared the double doors.

Pushing on the heavy iron handles, she stepped inside the large room. The first impression she had was of rows and rows of old books lining an entire wall. Bands of sunlight filtered across, outlining the furniture in dust-flecked gold that served to brighten an otherwise moody space.

Now was as good a time as any to start scouring for whatever secrets this huge, depressing house could offer.

She felt it, in the bones of the place-sad, sinister stories waiting to be uncovered. Terrible things had happened here. Her pendant seemed to throb, just from mere exposure to its walls.

Of their own accord almost, her hands drifted towards a shelf where one well-worn leather spine lined with cracks poked out slightly against the row of neatly placed books. She pulled it out, flipping it open, the tiniest mushroom of dust billowing out with her actions.

Placing one of the cushions on the window ledge, she sat cross-legged there, leaning against the window while browsing the heavy, yellowed pages, filled at first with drawings of landscapes and a few scribbled notes, barely legible. Bucolic, was the term that fit. Whoever had drawn the pages seemed to spend a lot of time gazing at pastures and mountains, grazing sheep and a few stray farmers. Halfway through, the subjects switched, abruptly, to hasty descriptions of battle. 'Fort Sumter' captioned one of the sketches. Unstudied and raw, a heavy hand had depicted organs and limbs flying almost off the pages, dirt and darkened spots mixing on the battlefield among a clash of men. Here and there, faces frozen in their death masks stared back at her. She quickly flipped past those, finding the next set of images focused on soldiers in a tent. Some maimed and injured, and a lot more just limp on the ground.

Tobias Fell, was the name scrawled along the inside cover. Nothing in the writing really gave off any of his personality. It was all in his drawings. He'd been a soldier-probably young, naive, and obviously his artist's soul that he'd poured into his sketches had been totally wrecked by the war.

The pages went blank three-quarters of the way.

He'd probably died young.

She put the book aside, not only from a sudden desire to get away from it but also because the room had grown frigid, random in a bad way that told her she should've been paying better attention. Outside the sun still stood high, but the eclipse was fast approaching. It would grow dark soon.

Out of the corner of her eye, something streaked across the open door.

Too fast for her to catch, she heard the rapid pounding of footsteps fading away.

She almost called out _his_ name, thinking better of it since whatever she'd seen run past the door was nowhere his size. It'd been closer to her own height, maybe even shorter.

A quick, shaky breath and she got to her feet somehow, though they felt sluggish and partially frozen, as did her fingers. The cold grew bite. Her ragged breath came out in small puffs, misting the air in front of her face.

Now she wanted to call out just to alert him, but found she couldn't. It was stuck in her throat, while she struggled to leave the room.

 _Let me go, leave me alone, I didn't do anything_ -

From behind her, cold fingers grazed her skin when she finally stepped through the doorway, and she couldn't help but glance back, even in her terror, just to see-she needed to know what it was-

The room was dim, the eclipse outside throwing shadows over every corner, and they moved, suddenly, four figures detaching from the edges of the room, their murky forms like black ink blotting her field of vision.

Drifting fast and close.

She whirled to run, colliding into a hard chest. Hands gripped her shoulders, and when she glanced up to scream for Kai-and was she insane, to think he'd be of any help?-it took her a few seconds to register the turbulent gaze that met hers, like the battered waves of the sea in a squall.

"K-K-Kai-" she shook her head at her stuttering, "Th-they're-" and stopped again, confused when her brain refused to form the warning, but he knew.

His glance over her shoulder was brief but telling. He saw them. She wasn't crazy. No, of course not, _he_ was, and somehow she'd gotten dragged into the insanity.

When he grabbed her hand and led her on a run down the hall, out of the house, and stopped them at the edge of the driveway near the woods-she wasn't scared. If anything, an embarrassing sense of relief filled her, that he was there.

And that his eyes no longer seemed completely devoid of life.

Fear could do that to a person.

Fear...

...and guilt.

-oOoOo-

He waited until a few minutes after the eclipse had passed, and tried not to notice that out of the corner of his eye, he could see her pacing and every so often mumbling something to herself. Her curls tumbled in protest each time she shook her head, as if she was trying to convince herself to wake up, that this was all just an extended nightmare to pull herself out of.

She wasn't wrong. Only, he needed out as much as she did, but how to convince her-

And why was he worrying it so much? If she couldn't be persuaded, there was always brute force and intimidation.

Why the fuck wasn't he more excited at the prospect? Seriously, had he gone too long without practice?

"Does that happen to you a lot?" she asked, now no longer pacing as she stood beside him, alternating between squinting suspiciously up at the house and at him.

He shrugged. "Let's just say lately, this empty prison world's gotten a little busier. Not exactly with the crowd of my choice." He waved a careless hand at her. "Present company excluded."

Her expression turned thoughtful, surprising him because he didn't expect her to be one for eating up flattery. "So it never happened before?"

"No, Bonnie. I mean sure, sometimes dreams because let's face it, killing half your family's bound to leave some kind of mental residue, you know?" he said casually. "But this level of interactive? Never happened. Not until you showed up in the mirror."

He faced her fully, frowning and he realized she was giving him back the same look. His eyes caught on the pendant she wore. Without thought, his fingers went up to get a better sense of the magic it held.

She shied away.

"Easy, all right?" He stepped closer, his eyes drifting shut.

"What're you doing?"

"Following my gut." It poured out of the stone, the rush of power ancient, potent, and yet not enough-never enough, unless the source was from a live body, warm and pulsing with magic fed with blood and the raw essence of untapped potential. Within moments, the pendant quit pulsing, and he blew out a quick breath, popping his eyes back open. "This pendant...pretty sure it's amplifying the effects of whatever spell we're under."

She eyed him in wonder, and once again all she carried in her expression was curiosity. That right there, would be his in.

"That's what you meant," she said softly. "You're like a...mystical leech."

And it could've been insulting, but he didn't take offense. The word was apt, simplified the concept. Never mind that his parents and a few of his siblings used to throw the word around; from her it didn't carry the same intent, somehow he just knew that.

"So you could-"

Their eyes met, and he was glad-incredibly thrilled to know that he was still capable of getting a kick out of the brief flash of unease in her face. He saw the moment she acknowledged to herself the kind of danger she was in, being around him. But to her credit, she didn't take even one step back, just slitted her eyes and there it went, the jut of her chin.

"Don't even think of trying that on me."

"Too late."

"Well, don't act on it."

He sighed, giving her an eye roll. "Ever think maybe if I sucked your magic out right now, that would solve both our problems? Not like I'd take all of it. Wouldn't want to kill my one-way ticket out of no man's land."

She stalked away from him, back to the house and of course, he followed her, but at a distance, loping easily and with lazy intent to keep her fuming and waiting once she got inside.

He spent a few moments casting leisure looks around the sprawling exterior of the mansion, hands in his pockets when his gaze locked on to the car on the driveway. He hadn't taken it for a spin lately. And now, he had a potential passenger to share in the joy ride.

Except she struck him as maybe not being the right candidate for the role.

His first encounter with a member of the opposite gender after a decade and a half: a cheerleading lifeguard-and didn't that tick off a lot of his boxes when it came to appealing attributes?-who had turned into some hybrid of witch and medium in recent weeks, and because of it, now she walked around like some uptight middle aged maiden aunt.

Just his luck.

The one upside to her tunnel-visioned obliviousness was how she hadn't seemed to register just who had been his eager participant in that funeral parlor office sex-dream. That he _really_ hadn't meant to have, but his brain had gone there, probably to avoid witnessing his dead siblings getting buried.

When he'd first drifted into the nightmare, he'd been standing next to a mausoleum, watching his family and his coven from a distance. Then the storm had begun, and from inside the coffins had come screams and shouts of terror, that sounded just like his siblings had right before he'd killed them. He'd wandered away at that point, stepping inside the funeral parlor and found Bonnie dressed like a mourner, walking down the hall to join the crowd.

And it hadn't come as a surprise that she was there-they'd been visiting each other's heads recently far more often since she cut off the mirror link. But when he'd stopped her, taunting, and she hadn't run away or tried to insult him back, he realized that it wasn't actually her. She'd just been another figment in his dream.

She'd walked up close, touched him first, and more-

Accepted it. His presence, his closeness. His kiss.

She'd taken his hand and led him into the office herself, and from there, he'd just been lost. No control, or any sense of self-preservation, the way he tried for when he masturbated in his waking moments. Filling his head with images of other women.

It was a bad idea in a lot of ways, but at that point he couldn't do it, didn't want to think of someone else to take her place. He couldn't stop himself, and that version of her in the dream had been so damn insistent. Persuasive.

The best kind of distraction, that kept him from going back out there to watch the rest of his nightmare unfold.

The reality was, by the time his parents buried his siblings, he'd already been banished to this world. The rare times he'd thought of it had been passing conjectures, mainly focused on how his father and mother might have spun it for the media and local authorities. For sure, they'd have covered their tracks to make sure there was no suspicion thrown their way.

He was certain they'd found some random teenager-maybe someone homeless and half dying, to be his substitute. To put of their misery, then maybe burn beyond all signs of recognition in some car crash, and take the fall for being the unfortunate Malachai Parker, mass murderer who'd met his untimely demise.

If he ever got out, he was about ninety percent sure that was the way his parents had ended his story for the general public to get a sense of closure.

Stepping back inside the mansion, he found Bonnie leaning against the console table, her arms crossed. The way she took in the walls, it was almost like she anticipated incorporeal forms walking through them. Which, considering the status quo lately, was entirely possible.

"Eclipse is over," he said. "It's sort of a catalyst for these little episodes. I think we're safe for now from more Amityville Horror re-enactments."

"I get why they're after you, but why are they gunning for me, too?"

He threw himself on the couch, sprawling on it and trying not to be impatient because she still hadn't figured it out.

"I came here for your help," she muttered. "But it looks like you need mine."

"Oh, and you're offering it? Finally ready to cut a deal with the devil, hmm?"

"Are you trying to put me off? Because it's working. Now I remember how much you don't deserve _any_ help."

His snicker when it filled the room carried notes of disdain. Why not? He could appreciate the irony here.

"Bonnie," he said, sitting up, at the same moment that she moved around and took the chair opposite the couch, facing him determinedly. He placed his knees on his elbows, clapping his hands together. "Pay attention. This is my 'I'm trying not to choke the life out of you' face. What makes you think that you're part of the solution here? I'm better off calling the Ghostbusters."

But he'd underestimated her, and she glared daggers at him. "You might think this connection between us is my fault, but I didn't ask for you to become my new BFF."

"What's a BFF?"

"Oh, geeze," she muttered, leaning back, passing a hand over her face.

"Oooh! New slang, I get it. Okay. Let me guess. Bright Funny Fiend. No? Bad Fairy-"

Her brow arched up, and she looked at him with renewed intrigue.

"Scratch that. Not fairy. I don't know where that came from. How about Boyfriend for Fu-"

"No!" She shook her head, horror on her face. "Best friends forever, okay? That's BFF."

"Ah. Personally, bright funny fiend sounds better."

"You're not that, either."

"Ouch."

He settled back, bit his lip, and tried hard not to grin. This was sort of fun. Then again, he hadn't had real company in so long, his standards had probably dropped pretty low.

"Look. You want me to bust you out, and I don't have my magic. I couldn't do that right now even if I wanted to. Which I don't." Then that same brow now puckered in thought. "But you could still keep the link to the real world."

He didn't much like where this was going. "You have your magic. Just gotta get past the mental block. I'll help you break down whatever walls you're putting up. Your end of the deal is to let me out." This time, he maintained an even, serious gaze on her. "I promise I'll leave you alone once I'm free. You, your family, your friends. Your town."

The shake of her head was quick and effortless. She didn't even give it any thought. His hands fisted, and he had to look away from her face.

"I'll lift the spell on the mirror. It'll let you keep seeing more of what's out there."

The urge to kick the coffee table and shatter it into pieces nearly overtook him, to show her what he thought of her plan. Brute force and intimidation, his go-tos. Next he imagined stalking over, taking her small wrist in his much large hand and pulling with all his might on the untapped magic there, letting it course between them, without so much as a by your leave from her.

Depleting her while filling him.

 _Go get your ass up and do it already._

He stayed seated, nearly choking on disappointment and bile.

"-some of the other things, like the internet. And the technology, there's a lot you'd be into." She paused, thinking. "Maybe I can smuggle in a flat-screen and some DVDs."

God, she was so fucking naive. When their eyes met again, his unblinking, she seemed to cringe. Not from fear, he could tell.

"Look at you," he said, scoffing. "You can barely take hearing your own BS."

It was his turn to leave the room, but before he did, he pointed to a stack of books and notebooks on the table at the far end. He'd been raised to consider information as a bargaining chip. Yet, sharing brains with this girl, there was very little she hadn't already been privy to.

"I almost don't want to give any of my notes to you. Don't really think your self-righteous ass deserves it, ya know?" Then he chuckled, pocketing his hands and lifting his shoulders. "But at some point you'll probably pick it out from my head. Like everything else lately, right?"

He walked away, had almost made it out fully-was so close-but some unknown force turned him around to stalk back over to her, and he sat on the table, his gaze on her unwavering. He sat so close their knees touched. The nearness unsettled her, he could read it in how tense she'd become but so the fuck what?

"What're you, sixteen," and this wasn't about intimidation, not really, so his voice was low and calm while he struggled to keep his desire to inflict violence at bay. "And you already think you're judge, jury, and executioner."

"That's not why I won't let you out. You said yourself you'd go after your coven." She leaned forward, as intent as him. "I'd set you free so you could kill more people?"

"That's kinda none of your business."

"Know what? You're right." She stood, and he mimicked her actions, effectively blocking her path when she tried to get away. Crossing her arms, she threw bravado at him that he itched to obliterate. "I can go right back to ignoring you. I found a way to block you in the mirror, I can do the same with the head sharing. There's enough going on, I don't need your crap on top of everything else."

"Sure. Go get your magic back. Better yet, why don't I get it for you?" Now he did grab her by the arm, gripping her tightly, just enough to put pressure without yet bringing any of the pain. "I bet with your mojo, I could do so much more with it. Find your dumb friend's sister, the druggie chick? She's missing, probably dead by now. Nothing a little locator spell couldn't handle. If the witch in question isn't totally inept."

He tightened his hold, and started pulling for real now. Her eyes widened and really, this girl was so gullible-why hadn't she even fought it? The first glimmer of magic swept over him, teasing.

So much raw fucking power.

"Oh, God," he whispered, leaning in. He hadn't felt that in so goddamn long. What a fucking fix this was gonna be-

"Quit it," she said, gritting her teeth and grimacing from the pain. Her head bowed even while she tried to pull, but his other hand found her shoulder and he leeched from her there, his palms growing heated.

"You're hurting me-" she stopped, doubling over, and why she sounded surprised that he was threw him. Had she expected any different, after basically denying him his freedom? He eyed her head now close to resting on his torso and wondered why some part of him wanted to push her away, put distance between them.

Her hair brushed his shirt, her face pressed against his chest while she groaned. Yeah, this hurt her like hell, but just then it all felt too damn intimate to him. If he kept it up, she'd probably pass out in his arms. It'd be like a hug without any of the warmth and well-meaning. Her own hands found his chest and pushed, weakly, before his shirt bunched in her fists and she managed a glare when her head tilted back up to face him.

"Kai-" her eyes locked on something over his shoulder, grew terrified. "No. Stop. Please don't-

She was scared out of her mind now. He waited for it, the rush of exhilaration, the thrill of knowing that he had caused that on her face. Made her finally afraid of him.

It never came. His hands stayed on her skin, no longer drawing on her magic. He just held her, keeping her upright, frowning while he stared down in confusion. There was some kind of urge-it was forming in his head and something else in his chest-made him feel ill and a little bit crazy and also...sad-

"I don't-" he stopped, unsure what was trying to come out. The fuck was this?

"Now you did it," Bonnie whispered, and now her panic was intense as her eyes flew to meet his. "They're angry."

Her head dropped again, long dark curls covering her face. The room grew cold then, and he knew it-once again, he'd made a really bad choice.

"Bonnie," he said urgently.

When she finally looked back up, it was with milky eyes. Her features distorted with loathing and rage, she brought a hand up between them, waiting. He didn't go flying, to his surprise. Instead of moving away from her, his hands found her cheeks and he shook her, gently now. Wherever she'd gone, he'd bring her back.

And maybe apologize. For the first time in his fucking life.

"Don't touch her." Her mouth moved, but the voice-deep, low, and inhuman-was no longer hers.

"Leave her alone," he said coldly.

"This is the last time for you, Kai."

And this time Bonnie hadn't spoken, but the chorus of voices filling the room was high-pitched and reminiscent of sounds he hadn't heard in over fifteen years. His little siblings.

A large knife appeared in Bonnie's hand, its faded handle and sharp, curved edge familiar to him and already streaked with blood.

He watched it in a daze, as it glinted in the air, Bonnie's hand swinging down.

She buried the hunting knife deep into his intestines.

-oOoOo-

It was like peering through a peephole, inside a room that she couldn't get into, no matter how hard she tried to break down the door. Trapped inside her own mind, held hostage by the ghosts of his past, while her body carried out their revenge.

First there was the stabbing. She was lost in it, the sense of rightness that washed over her when the metal blade disappeared inside his belly.

 _How's it feel?_

Kai's voice, low and menacing, echoing in her head. She'd heard it before in his dreams. He'd said it to one of his siblings, right before he gutted them.

Now he bled all over the living room, spattering crimson on the couch, the table, the rug, his handprints trailing everywhere and that was fine and familiar, too.

A rope appeared then, hanging over the thick spindle staircase. He'd dropped to the floor on his knees at that point, his mouth slipping into a broken smile as he watched her tie the rope around the edge of the second floor railing.

Bonnie couldn't stop her hand from stretching out once more, dragging Kai's body up the stairs. The whole time he fell into grunting, partial laughter even. They bypassed the stairs, and went into the enormous master bath.

Water had filled the iron claw-foot bathtub there.

Without struggling much, he let himself be led to the edge of the tub, his face dazed when she easily lifted him by the back of his neck and plunged his head under the water.

 _Saved you for last, you ungrateful-_

His voice in her head cut off, as she drowned him. For several long moments his body seized. She waited until his arms quit jerking, before releasing her hold.

Locked inside her mind, Bonnie started shaking uncontrollably, her teeth chattering with the force of it.

He was dead. Because of her.

"Shh. Just wait, Bonnie."

A child's voice, one she'd heard often lately, also from his dreams. The air wavered in the room, hazy shapes going in and out of focus, while she sat on the floor by his body, blood and water mixing in a small puddle beneath them.

"There he is," said the small voice.

Kai stirred back to life, his eyes popping open. He gasped, gurgling water. As it trickled out of his mouth, his gaze found hers.

He didn't look at all accusing. Not even when she rose to stand before him, walking away with her hand held out. His body slid to follow her out of the bathroom and down the hall.

The room inside her mind dissolved briefly and she stepped through, finding herself in control.

"It's not me," she said, her steps faltering, turning a wild look at him because now they had a chance. She ran to help him.

But he started laughing again, pointing behind her. A bloodied bat rolled down the floor towards them. She had time to just stare in horror as it coasted to a stop at her feet.

"You're up," said another voice. They both blinked up at the boy that flashed before them, disappearing inside Bonnie.

Once more, she found herself on the outside, watching through the keyhole.

Her hands reached out for the bat.

Kai's laugh turned into a choke.

"My turn, huh?" he said. "Guess I had it coming."

The bat splintered along the sides, when it landed over and over and over and over and over on his form. He never tried to cover himself, just winced at each hit. His jaw cracked, and his nose. She'd beaten his body eighteen times before his shirt on one side bent in at a weird angle. When she finally dropped the bat, his head had split open right above his ear.

The skin around her knuckles split open. Hands shaking, she brought them up to cover her face and will it all to end.

"One more," came another voice, wispy, close to her ear.

Somehow she moved, an invisible force dragging his form once again to follow her. She crouched near the ropes tied to the banister and slung his neck through the knot she'd made earlier.

"Hey," he rasped, unable to open his swollen, bloodied eyes, one of them almost popping out from the socket.

"I'm sorry," Bonnie whispered, breaking through for a moment.

His hand found hers, and he managed a squeeze. "Stole my line," he choked.

She tossed him over the railing, the snap of his neck reverberating inside the cavernous house. The keyhole disappeared. Her body became hers once more, but her ears roared with fury and her head was hot, ready to burst.

Kai hung from the railing.

Four figures lined the stairs in a row watching him. Quiet. Their faces normal, one of them chubby-cheeked and bright-eyed. The others a little taller, ganglier, and sober-faced. One glanced at Bonnie, nodding his head once, looking much like a younger version of his killer.

Their forms vanished slowly, her mind quieting in tandem. The only sound left in the entire house was of wood creaking in time to the swinging of a corpse dangling at the end of the rope.

-oOoOo-

Kai woke up sprawled on the first floor of the boarding house. The day had reset, he could tell because all of his blood was absent. But the rope lay on the floor beside him, the knots undone.

Bonnie, he remembered. At some point, she must have untied him.

He shot up, dizzy but glancing around quickly. To his relief, he found her nearby. Asleep on the couch and curled into a fetal position.

She'd killed him, repeatedly, the way he had his siblings, and where he'd gone that last time when he died was some kind of rude awakening. Not hell, surprisingly. But someplace both better and worse, that offered him a few clues now of where all this shit was headed.

Taking the kinks out of his neck, he staggered over to where she lay, thinking to himself that after their awesome experience, they could both use a nice, hearty breakfast.

The two of them were the only things in the room still carrying traces of blood. He made his way upstairs to shower quickly, before finding spare clothes for them both, then whistled his way into the kitchen.

When she wandered in half an hour later, groggy and partially stumbling when she saw him at the stove, her slack-jawed almost cross-eyed look made him chuckle. Then she ran up, catching him off guard, because she looked for a moment there like on the verge of attacking him.

Bonnie stopped short, instead, and frowned at the skillet. He had French toast there, coated with brown sugar. Just how she liked it, from what he'd remembered of those times looking in on her breakfast at her grandmother's.

Her eyes filled with something he couldn't place. Maybe guilt that he was cooking one of her favorites after basically torturing him to death?

"Small beans, Bonnie," he said softly, eyeing her carefully. "My siblings got me back. Good for them. Not so good for me, but I get it." Then he swallowed down a little of the bile that rose to the back of his throat. "Sucked that you got dragged into it."

After a few seconds just staring at him with that torn expression on her face, she nodded to herself. Then she stuck her hand out, and automatically he shook it.

"Clean slate," she said, and he could tell she was still trying to convince herself. "I don't know about your coven, but I think-since I killed you a couple times yesterday...you get a fresh start with me. But don't ever take my magic again. Deal?"

"Deal."

And she even managed a shaky smile, that wobbled something inside him in return. Which he ignored, as he turned back to the stove.

"So, about my freedom-"

"Yeah, how about we work our way to that? I'm kinda young to be playing your watch dog." Then she took a breath. "But it's not off the table. Just...give me time."

"Fine." A beat later, he couldn't help asking, "About that flat screen, then, and those DVDs..."

She squeezed fresh fruit for their breakfast juices, while he went to work on the bacon, and between them ironed out a plan to get her magic back, work on a new locator spell, smuggle him new tech, and spy on the Salvatores. All before breakfast was even done.

All in all, a good morning's work, and definitely an improvement on the previous day.

Or, shit, the last thirty-seven years.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Howdy, all. I made up my own title for this chapter since it took place entirely outside of any eps. I'm way behind on the Charade, hoping to get the next chapter of that up by this Sunday...maybe, otherwise early next week. Thanks for the feedback, guys! Noticed a few questions from some of you last chapter **...**

bluemagicrose: they're more absorbing each other's traits, going back and forth. emily's role, grams and her meeting with the tribunal...it'll slowly start coming together in the next few chapters.

leianaberrie: the parker parents don't have a great track record with their names-malachai, josette...poindexter seemed to fit lol...i have geoff being a little older than dex.

juststockton: emily's possession will come into play, but go a little differently. after this chapter a few events will start veering further away from canon.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

 _Runaway Train_

"I never understood that saying," said Kai, gesticulating with his bag of Funyuns. "Can't teach an old dog new tricks."

Sitting on the blanket, communing with nature in the middle of the field, Bonnie tried to ignore him but his casual munching was growing louder and more obnoxious. She closed her eyes, tuning him out.

Several hours into her flagging attempt to restore her magic and she was almost out of ideas. His one suggestion so far stunk. This was her first time being disconnected from it, and his insistence that her own state of mind was responsible didn't sit well with her. Why would she have done that to herself, and more importantly, how? Not once in all these past months of learning about the mystical aspects of herself and the world had the thought ever formed- _no thanks, don't want it_.

Not even when she'd made contact with Kai in the mirror, or started having random nightmares about all the things wrong lately with not just her life but also, her town.

"Like, why not? My family had one, this dopey bloodhound, but even at thirteen years old he figured out the squirrels I tortured were easier kills than the street cats he liked to chase." He snickered, chomping down on another crunchy processed onion ring. "Got real good trapping their necks between his jaw on the first lunge."

Appalled, she popped open an eye just in time to catch him adjusting his position on the lawn chair, making himself more comfortable, moving his irritating quotient into the ninety-fifth percentile because the ground beneath her even with the blanket had been hurting her ass for the last twenty minutes.

She glared with her one seeing eye.

"Do you mind?" she asked pointedly.

"No, carry on," he said, smiling. "Not that you're showing any progress, but who am I to get in the way of self-delusion? You're a Bennett, of course you want to go kumbaya with the trees and the sky- and all this grass. That's where good ol' Sheila told you to draw your power from, right?" He snorted. "You'd probably get better results with a different type of grass, Bonnie."

The problem with this world-aside from having to share it with a lunatic-was the lack of movement and sound. Not just people or animals, but nature. Wind didn't seem to carry, at least not in a natural way, one that didn't involve elements of the supernatural. Leaves stayed stagnant on the ground, and plants and flowers sat dull and lifeless in their settings, much like the fake plastic ones in the department stores.

Useless, this exercise. No communing with nature, and why would there be? Kai's prison world-his coven hadn't wanted him to. The little that she had read of the Gemini coven told her they had once stood against the unnatural aspects of magic, but then a few of their practices from the last couple centuries didn't seem to support that any longer.

"It's not the old dogs who are the problem. The puppies, though?" Kai tsked. "Getting them to learn even basic tricks? Now _that's_ a bitch."

"You've been alone too long," she muttered. "You like the sound of your own voice too much."

She stood, brushing off imaginary lint from her pants. The world was growing dimmer, the solar eclipse starting to cast its partial shadow above, turning day slowly into night. Kai continued sitting, smirk growing as she picked up the blanket and slung it over her shoulder.

"Giving up already?"

"I'm not four-legged or furry, Kai," she said through gritted teeth. "Might wanna work on your pep talks."

She stalked past him, but he abruptly stood, blocking her.

She stopped short, caught between the need to stand her ground against his obvious ploy to make her uncomfortable, and the desire to maintain distance just in case he decided he'd had enough of playing at their truce. It never left her thoughts-not fully-that he could just as easily siphon her magic and attempt his own escape. With or without her.

"Hey," he said casually. "Quick question. Notice anything missing?"

She'd already been moving even before he got the comment out, and she didn't stop again as she answered. "Yeah," she tossed over her shoulder, her hand automatically drifting to her neck where her medallion should've been. "I was hoping you'd stop playing games and give it back."

Behind her, he scoffed. "What would I want with it? The amber totally washes out my skin tone." He was quiet for a moment. "Suits yours better."

She kept barreling towards the house, not dwelling on how his voice pitched lower, or that her ass felt warm. If she turned around, she was fairly sure his eyes were drilling holes into the back pockets of her jeans.

The idle wish crossed her mind once more-if only he had a hook nose and hairy warts all over his face. But what did any of that matter anyway? She needed to avoid taking pages from her friends' books. Mysterious and broody lately in their world could only spell unspeakably terrible things. Even now, she wished she could travel back in time and nudge Elena past the school office without any mention of Stefan's leather-jacketed back. Or that she'd found a way to run interference the night Caroline had ever crossed paths with Damon, leading to him giving her a ride home.

Look where both her friends were now. One aggressively twitchy, the other wallowing in secret anxiety. Both husks of their former selves, just a few short months back.

Then again, Kai was neither broody nor mysterious. Sure he had a nice face, but in the end smug and sociopathic were more appropriate terms, and she found neither quality appealing.

Bonnie sighed, then turned, and her arms went out, preventing Kai from colliding with her because of how closely he followed.

This would be mortifying, but needed saying, and she wasn't one to avoid harsh truths.

"I'm the first girl you've been around in years," she said. "And I wish you were ugly, but that's not the case. Either way, this link is messing with both our heads. And probably some hormones. On your part. We can't afford that. So quit staring at my butt."

For once, he was speechless. Just blinking, completely at a loss.

She swallowed nervously, knowing her cheeks would soon turn a little pink and wishing her skin was just a shade darker to hide those tells. At least she had comfort in the growing darkness around them, as the eclipse neared its full height.

Kai suddenly bit down on his lip, his eyes filling with amusement. "As you wish."

"Seriously, Kai," she said, eager to put this conversation behind them. "Down the line, when I feel like you're safe enough to let out, you're gonna go wild with bar-hopping, clubbing, getting your fill. The whole nine yards. Just-keep calm, until then. Okay?"

"Why would I take advice from a sixteen year old?" Then his eyes narrowed. "Are you even that?"

"In a few months."

"Geeze," he muttered, a hand rubbing his eyebrow.

"Look, if we're gonna be in each other's corner, I don't want it half-assed."

The slip-up heated her cheeks even worse; she could feel it, and knew it too in the way his glance turned knowing.

"For all that you're warning me to behave," he drawled. "You're the one that keeps mentioning derrieres."

"You know what I mean." Then she paced, moving on to the more pressing topic. "If you don't have Emily's talisman, then who does?"

He put his hands in his pockets, shrugging as he walked past her.

She'd woken up that morning feeling the loss of the talisman instantly. But then finding Kai's corpse missing had superseded everything else, and in the ensuing time, she'd suspected that he was the one who took it.

"You said it amplified the effects of this spell connecting us," she said, her steps quick to catch up with his long strides, even though he didn't seem to be in any rush himself. "How could you tell?"

"How could you not?"

She frowned in confusion.

Now he was the one exhaling his irritation. "Much as I thought I could be all, 'well, it's like this, young grasshopper'-I really can't." He laughed, a hand sweeping from the top of his brow to the bottom of his jaw, while his eyes glared up at the shadowed skies before turning to her. "First things first, Bonnie. Stop being naive with magic."

His hands reached out, grabbing hers. "You wanna feel nature, great. But my world's not normal. Focus on that, instead. Close your eyes."

She watched him warily.

His brow quirked up, and she huffed but let her eyes drift shut, and it registered then that he had timed it somehow. The eclipse was in full force now, the world around them eerie and dark while she held hands with the friendly neighborhood psycho.

She tried not to shiver.

"I can't produce spells without drawing from another witch's power first, but a little bit of magic still runs in me." She felt him step nearer, his hands squeezing before his grip turned loose. "Channel it. It's the most abnormal thing you'll probably encounter here. Use it as a stepping stone."

Channeling was a work in progress for her. Grams had been her only experience so far, an effort which had taken nearly half an hour and a series of hiccups before Bonnie even so much as felt a trickle of the older woman's potent magic seep into her.

She felt nothing now with Kai, except for her hand growing sweatier by the moment. She tried to pull away.

"Bonnie," he warned. "Fight your nerves. Just do it. Baywatch is on in ten minutes."

Which drew a choked sound from her, one that let out her frustration at being such a walking disaster lately. Baywatch. Of course. How could she forget the funeral parlor interlude in his dream? Where he plowed into Pam Anderson in her strange affinity for dark sheer stockings and stiletto heels while in her swimwear. Bonnie had thought at first that it'd been a different woman and the blonde had been added in later, but he'd talked almost non-stop about Baywatch since breakfast, so now she knew better.

Secretly, a part of her suspected he harped on it to cover how shaken he was by everything else.

Probably Pam Anderson had been his brain's way of protecting him from having to watch the funeral of his siblings that he'd murdered.

Aside from that one comment during breakfast, about the four getting even with him, he'd never brought it up again. Even though, like he'd said, it'd been pretty much torture.

At her hands.

He tugged her abruptly, and she stumbled against him, gasping in surprise, her eyes opening wide.

His were still closed.

"Any day now," he sing songed, his breath hitting her cheeks.

Annoyed, she shut her eyes tightly, focusing on the erratic pinpricks of power on his skin. He was right. It was there, but hard to get a handle on, like trying to gather sharp hot needles inside one container. Channeling him would hurt, she realized.

She did it anyway.

Her blood burned, coaxing a cringe from her in reaction to the sting. Between her ears grew a sound, small at first until it filled the spaces in her head and her brain echoed with a roar that beat forcefully against her head. Nerve endings shot to life, her skin on fire with magic that was greedy, seeking, attuned not to nature but to a vacuum, to the act of emptying filled spaces.

"What is this?" she whispered, and then her eyes shot open again, because her magic was back, and when she looked around, the world was spinning in a swirl of leaves and inky black skies, trees around them swaying to the force of her power.

Kai gazed intently back, sweat pooling on his brow. "Keep going-" his voice caught between a choke and a growl.

Nature and the abnormal-the unnatural, fighting for dominance in her blood. Fire crept over her hands, covering his, too, but he didn't make a sound, just set his jaw. The flames tickled her skin, and she laughed, letting it dance around her arms before it swept over the rest of her.

She kept the fire away from him but let it spread around them. It devoured the grass, Kai's magic leeching it of life. The flames turned white, then dimmed back to orange, following the movement of leaves in the air around their heads, the wind whipping Bonnie's hair around both their faces, strands of it wrapped in flames, red-gold and cracking against Kai's cheek, singing the skin there.

Bonnie gasped, then pulled away from him.

The magic show died, just as the eclipse, too, began to pass.

"S-Sorry," she said, because aside from the burn on his cheek, she saw that his hands were blistered, the skin there smoking.

He was still gritting his teeth, staring at her, his pupils large and black and fathomless as he reached out, swiping with a finger against her skin, between her nose and her lip.

Her eyes caught on the blood resting at the tip of his finger, which looked leathery white and raw.

Bonnie ran back to the house, not looking behind her. "I'm gonna get first aid," she called. "Stay right there!"

They were at least third-degree burns, she thought hazily, and he could pass out from the pain which was why she'd left him behind. She filled a small pot with cold water while she rummaged through the cabinets. By the time she made it back out with supplies and was near enough to spot him, Kai was lying on the ground.

She cursed. The pain must've been bad, for him to have fainted that quickly.

When she reached him, her steps faltered and then her grip went slack, dropping all her supplies.

He lay in a pool of blood under his head, a Swiss army knife in one of his hands.

"Kai," she whispered, getting to her knees. She shook him. "Kai!"

He was-dead?

Her shaking turned him towards her, revealing the thick gash on his throat. Her eyes stuck on the knife in his hands. "What the hell?" she cried out. "What did you do, you stupid-"

She drew back, numb. Her magic had done too much damage, and she had left to help, but maybe he hadn't heard her when she said she was getting supplies, only what did it signify-why would that explain anything? Except if he was suicidal-

Her brain offered an image of the Founder's ball, when she'd spotted him in the mirror, looking ill. Smoke billowing in the garage. What had he been doing? Smoke, not from a nearby fire, but like the exhaust fumes of a running car, dissipating through the opened garage. He hadn't been ill-just recovering.

Last night-the stabbing. He'd only smiled at that. Then the beating that he'd sensed was coming for him, when the bat rolled towards them. That one, had prompted his laughter.

He was suicidal.

She smacked his arm. "Wake up!" she shouted, then bowed low, wracked with guilt but more with frenzied hope that it was another fake-out.

She'd killed him over and over last night, and whether the ghosts of his siblings had resurrected him or it had all been one enormous mindfuck, she hadn't yet decided-but the point was, he'd been alive that morning.

And now he was dead again-at his own hands. Maybe his siblings had returned, and while she was gone, they'd finally finished for real what they had started last night.

Tears prickled her eyes, but she refused to give in.

"Can't be right," she said to herself, feeling insane. How did this happen?

She stood, pacing around, her wild eyes everywhere and on the lookout for the ghosts.

"Where are you?" she demanded.

The truly ironic thing was how badly she needed to see them just then. At least if they did, she'd know what to expect, that after inflicting this latest bout of mental anguish on their brother, he would wake up once more. Or so she hoped.

Daylight had returned, the sun irrationally bright and pleasant while the puddle of blood at her feet grew wider and thicker, and Kai's body turned paler.

Bonnie stared, her gut churning, and then couldn't hold it. She ran to a nearby bush, vomiting the continental breakfast that a dead man had cooked for her, until her emptied stomach spasmed in protest. She made her way back to Kai, circling his body in growing anger.

It didn't make sense.

She clutched her head, shaking it. Something wasn't right. Why would his siblings bring him back to life? She lay on the grass, taking in lungfuls of air in an attempt to avoid hyperventilating.

His hand were burned-and that was all. The pain couldn't have been unbearable, he didn't seem like a wimp.

She closed her eyes, the tears on the edge of her lashes drying now. Her mind was settling, cooling, following a meandering path through twisted logic. Nobody could be that blasé about dying. Even jumpers never just plunged without any warning, without first trying to seek attention, find someone who cared enough to derail the effort.

He wasn't really suicidal-so then, what?

Grass prickled her back, soothing her, and she let her magic coat her, bringing her more peace. Her thoughts further calmed.

Prison world. Solitary confinement. The Geminis. A bunch of assholes, locking up one of their own. They hadn't killed him for the atrocities he'd committed-they wanted him to suffer. For a long time. Maybe even forever.

Fifteen years, he'd said. He hadn't aged.

Why would his siblings bring him back?

They wouldn't.

They didn't need to.

Kai couldn't die. Or if he did...

This prison brought him back.

"Of course," she muttered, relief and fury mingling in her aggravated tone. She glared at his body behind her, nearly giving into a strong urge to kick him.

Who knew why the hell he'd done it? Only that he'd done so without warning.

What a prick.

-oOoOo-

Her anger didn't faze him, not in the least, but his reaction to it sure as hell did.

Hours later, he was back in the house, his face and hands fully healed, the secondary reasons behind his latest suicide. The primary one sat at the dining table, flipping through notebooks and grimoires, each turn of the page a sharp, crisp crack of a whip in the heavy silence filling the gapingly huge den in the boarding house.

She'd channeled him, burned him, and by the time it was all over he'd sported-literally-the world's biggest boner that somehow she'd missed before she ran away. Of course he was going to kill himself. How else to get rid of the damn thing that didn't involve tossing her against a tree when she returned and having his merry fucking way with her?

And it wasn't his fault-not really-if he hadn't anticipated that this gullible witchling had failed to pick up on his imposed immortality here in this prison world, never mind that she'd witnessed him come back to life three or four times now.

Why was she even mad? Channeling him had gotten her magic back.

 _He_ was the one who'd missed Baywatch. What did it matter to him that she was mad?

The blank television mocked him, its black screen inviting thoughts of swimsuits and breasts and butts and Bonnie's breasts and butt, to be more exact. Flames coating her form while she pranced around the beach in a trim little red one-piece-

He groaned, grabbed the remote, and switched the television on to MTV.

Kris-Kross's latest music video greeted him. He stared unseeing while his brain went into overdrive.

What was wrong with him? He had control.

Near-death or actual, those experiences he could usually brush off, but last night's debacle was just on the wrong side of fun. Seeing his siblings, even in specter-form-those had hit him hard. Since breakfast, he couldn't seem to stop remembering how, when they were all younger and before he'd started distancing himself from them-they'd all done things like family game night, or card night, or movie night. Every once in a while, when they weren't being obnoxious little brats.

Even his stupid dad used to join, back before he got all outraged over Kai's brushes with the law, the coven elders, and the other covens' elders.

Bonnie-being the only girl available to him-was serving as his escapist fantasy. From the stress which, irritatingly, had never really been much of a problem for him until a few weeks ago.

He patted his pocket, thinking, but not so lost in his thoughts that he wasn't aware the instant she entered the room. Her faint perfume wafted his way, along with her energy-like a spark of tinder-and it zinged him right back out of his mind, which he did not appreciate.

She was glowering at him, holding a large magazine in her hands that was spread open and dotted with blood. He scowled back.

"Thought I told you to clean up," he said, but that wasn't right, he realized. Her face was clean, the blood that had pooled beneath her nose when she'd channeled him now wiped off.

He'd been dying to lick it off her earlier, back when they were still holding hands and she looked nothing more than the best candy ever, dipped in fire.

She slowly approached, her eyes narrowing into slits as they stared down at the page-not from a magazine, he saw now, but an atlas of the city-before she tossed it on the table behind the couch.

"You said to be more proactive," she said in a deceptively light voice that gave him just a little misgiving. "So I tried a locator spell."

"Oh?" He glanced breezily towards the page, saw a circle grouped in one location in Mystic Falls. "Do tell."

"Wanna explain why the line doesn't move from the boarding house?" she asked, grinning with bite at him. "Emily's talisman is here. Right here. Your siblings didn't magically smuggle it out with them, did they?"

He gestured towards the atlas. "See what the locator spell says, young grasshopper."

"Stop it, Kai. Just gimme back her talisman."

"Not hers," he corrected. "Why don't you claim it as yours, Bonnie?"

"Because it was Emily's. Grams said she made it-"

He held up a finger, cutting her off. "Eeeeeergh," he beeped. "Wrong answer."

He stood, towering over her. This was an important lesson for any witch, much less one packing the wallop she did. "Your Grams is not the end-all be-all for magical studies, all right?" he said. "Do you understand what happened to you out there? You think it was about earthy Mother Nature giving you hippy bohemian voodoo vibes?"

"No," she said. "Destruction, too. I get it, okay? Felt the need to burn everything away. You included." She smiled. "I should've."

He nodded in approval. "Very good. The only kind of nature you should be concentrating on for now is your own." She gave him a speculative glance, moving closer. "Know what makes you tick, what you're capable of, and then you'll know how to avoid losing control. Because that's why you blocked yourself, right? Afraid of the damage you could do?"

She stared up, her demeanor reminding him of a skittish porcupine. Any moment now, she'd turn and raise those quills.

"Because I'm such a bad influence on you?" he continued softly.

"The amulet's close," she replied.

"Get closer."

Challenging, she stepped boldly up in one go, her hand shooting out to land on his hip.

"Whose amulet?" he prodded.

Her gaze was steady and measured. "Mine."

He continued staring at her, hoping she wouldn't hear the stupid way his heart pitter-pattered against his ribcage. She couldn't hear that, there was no way-she was a witch, not a damn vampire.

His eyes widened-there it was. The shared thread. "Oh," he said.

Her hand was in his pocket, digging, fingers wrapping around the talisman. Several things happened all at the same time.

One-junior Kai, stirring in response to her fingers in his pockets.

Two, his Eureka.

Three, Bonnie flashing the amulet in his face, her smile triumphant, which was good, it was a distraction for her, thank God. She still failed to register the first thing. He turned, focusing on his notes and the grimoires stacked on the table, browsing quickly through several passages.

She followed him.

"You waste a lot of time with your mind games," she grumbled.

"If I spell everything out for you, how're you gonna learn? Gotta exercise those brain cells, kiddo."

Her face scrunched up. "Kiddo? You're not that much older."

That one had him chuckling in irritation. "I'm thirty-eight mentally, trapped in a twenty-two-year-old physically, and every second I'm spending training you is kinda making me feel like I'm sixty and ready to collect my social security."

She bristled, rearing back to snap his head off, but then her head tilted in curiosity. "Retirement age is sixty-seven now," she said unexpectedly.

"Hooray. I'm totally digging the future. Not."

"Yeah, Grams sounds just like that, anytime she talks about it." Her teeth flashed, pretty and white and mocking. "Guess you are more like an old geezer than a teenager."

"Nice. You just called your Grams an old geezer."

"No," she insisted. "That was reserved for you."

He turned away from her, pressing his hands against his eyes. "Trying to concentrate here. I'm onto something. The Salvatores, your friend's sister. I know what they are." He frowned at her. "What'd Sheila tell you about them?"

"Stay away from them."

"Any weird instructions? Like, buy lots of garlic. Keep lots of crosses."

She scoffed. "You're telling me they're vampires?"

He eyed her without any mockery.

Bonnie gasped, her own eyes filling with shock. "Grams said don't let them inside the house. But that doesn't mean-no way-"

"Why not, Bonnie? You're a witch. I'm an exiled magic-siphoner, stuck on a 1994 repeat. Why exactly wouldn't there be vampires running around, probably snacking on your friends as we speak?"

She backed away, her head shaking. "No way," she repeated. "Stefan's not. How? He's-"

"Cold to the touch, reeks of death, and super pale."

"He walks around in daylight."

Kai contemplated that. "Loophole. It happens. Maybe he's got a witch tucked away in a back pocket, spelling him free of that one little drawback."

She paced, the talisman around her neck glowing brightly. His head tightened, and the world spun-for her also, he suspected, judging by the sudden queasy look passing her face. The achy feeling in his chest became more pronounced, and his mind filled with thoughts of his dead siblings. Unbidden, tears sprang to his eyes.

"Fuck me," he choked out, dropping to the couch.

Another song played, guitar strumming an easy ballad, while Bonnie plopped down next to him.

 _Call you up in the middle of the night..._

"Why're you crying?" she asked, her voice sounding curious and distant and not all that interested in getting him to stop.

"Is that what it is?" he said. "Cuz I was gonna say-allergies."

She snorted.

"I should get back to my friends," she said. "If vampires are in town, someone needs to keep an eye."

"Guess you're volunteering yourself?"

She shrugged, the movement eerily close to his own mannerism.

"Get rid of that talisman," he suddenly said.

"What? Why? You just told me to claim it."

"Did I?" he asked weakly. He sucked. "I was wrong. It's not good for us."

She sighed. "We're turning into each other, aren't we?"

He shook his head. "Mirroring. Hopefully we'll plateau soon."

"Why are you more affected by it?"

"Sure about that? Ask yourself, do you feel bad that a grown man is crying like an idiot in front of you right now?"

"No, I don't. What you did was awful and boohoo crying doesn't bring them back. It's the lowest form of remorse, if you ask me. Find another way to make amends." She paused. "I feel bad for your family, though."

Ha. A faint smirk crossed his lips. "Wait til you meet the rest of 'em. I'd withhold judgment until then."

 _Seems like I should be getting somewhere, somehow I'm neither here nor there..._

"God, why is this song so depressing?" he asked.

Bonnie started chuckling, but when he turned, she looked half-crazed because her face was sad while she devolved into laughter. "It's the nineties. Everything's angsty."

"Eighties would've been better."

She nodded, smirking back, her eyes cool while they assessed his own, still tear-filled. He rubbed sloppily at his face.

"Bonnie," he said. "Get outta here."

"Uh, hello. I've been trying?"

He lifted a hand, just stopping himself from touching her face, and pointed instead. "Face up to it."

The lost look in her eyes drew out more tightness in his gut. He took his hand back, leaning against the cushions of the sofa, compelled by a need just then to hurt something living and breathing. She was the only candidate, but the thought of laying violent hands on her made him want to hurl.

The fuck was this spell doing to him?

"Remember how you thought you could help with my ghost problem?" He laughed, too, this one bitter. "Not realizing, the whole time, you're the biggest one. You're not really here, Bonnie."

"Wait, what? Kai, what're you-"

"You haunt me," he said, his voice hoarse. "Worse than they ever did. Go back. Ten bucks says your body's still in your room, waiting for you to wake up."

Her face lit up with hope. Abruptly she leaned in, her arms reaching out. He braced himself, thinking too much of him had replaced her, and now Bonnie was going nuts, she was going to attack with her magic, in some weird way involving close contact. She could probably kill him just then with him putting up barely any fight.

Her body pressed against him and he lost the ability to form a coherent thought. Whatever this was-kinda didn't suck, as far as being murdered went.

"What-" He cleared his throat. "What do you call this?"

"A hug."

He tried to think, realized he'd seen it before a few times and just hadn't paid much attention.

"Catch you later," she said, her arms squeezing around his neck. "I won't forget your stuff."

Then she closed her eyes tightly, fading away in slow increments until all that was left of where she'd once been was her scent, lingering in the air beside him.

Stupid spell.

* * *

 **A/N:** Hope you guys liked. Thanks for the feedback once more. The chapter title is from the song by Soul Asylum. Gold star to anybody who can guess why I chose it-hint: the song is important to canon Bonkai. :)


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

 _History Repeating_

Emily haunting her had ruined most of the week. Non-stop nightmares filled with cryptic foreboding 'It's coming' and 'you must be ready' comments, from a face half hidden under a huge old-timey bonnet and with a hint of a smug smile peeking out anytime Bonnie asked clarifying questions.

"It's getting annoying," she griped to the mirror, where its lone occupant stood leaning against the counter of the Twistee Treat, slurping up chocolate ice cream from a waffle cone. It dribbled down his fingers, and he licked it off at leisure, without any apparent knowledge of good table manners.

"So is that," she added. "There's this thing called a napkin, ever heard of it?"

"Sounds like someone needs her own scoop of cold and sweet as sin," Kai taunted. "Wanna taste?"

"I wanna sleep," she mumbled, flopping back on her bed.

"No dice," he said cheerfully. "Can't be late for school, because then your dad will freak, and ban you from practicing magic, thus snipping off my last thread of hope for freedom." He chomped on the end of his cone, chewing with abruptly hardened eyes, scowling at her without any hint of teasing. "Go already. Take a nap in class if you have to. Better yet, there's this other thing called coffee. Ever heard of _that_?"

He lacked the warm and fuzzy personality to be a good listener-if anything, what he seemed to really like was just hearing his own voice. And maybe that was it, she was starting to realize. His interruptions and sidebar comments distracted her, made her forget sometimes what latest magical mishap she was spazzing about.

It was two weeks after their unplanned weekend of (his) repeated murder and (her) uncharacteristic mayhem. Her guilt at the harm she'd caused him had spurred her, in record time, to find the right spell that smuggled a flat-screen, blue-ray dvd player, and a stack of Quentin Tarantino movies into his world. Not the easiest casting-had taken four attempts, several bloody noses, and one total knockout at the end of it, but she'd woken up to find him standing in the mirror watching her with a tiny hint of disbelief, a smudge of anger, and just a touch of that same eyerolling that she was so used to seeing from Grams and her father both, whenever she did something-and well-that qualified on many levels as a bad idea.

Strange, seeing him join their ranks. But she knew, deep in her gut, as much as she distrusted the idea of being allied with a psycho killer-it was already done. Akin to the type of camaraderie that maybe soldiers experienced, the trauma of shared horrors had sort of pushed her into a new perspective, when it came to their unexplained link. Maybe there was a point to it. That it wasn't all awful.

She didn't like to dwell on how easygoing she was taking this shifting outlook. It would've worried her-but for two things.

Killing him-badly, repeatedly-without receiving any type of payback in return? That held weight with her. And how he'd acted that night, too, the little remarks in response to his siblings actions. It gave her hope.

Not that change was happening overnight. From the stack of new movies to watch, Kai had picked out _From Dusk til Dawn._ And asked her to join, setting mirrors up so it felt like they were side by side having movie night.

It made her sad, had her doubting her own conviction to wait until she'd found a way to ensure that setting him free wasn't just inviting a future murder spree.

Then Kai had turned to her in the mirror, and in between shoving popcorn in his mouth, said, "See right there, the roll of toilet paper? That's what separates the winner from the loser." He nodded in approval as said toilet paper lit the gas station clerk on fire. "Clearly, Seth's a winner. Agree or no?"

Her sadness went up in a plume of smoke, dissipating into nothing.

Since that night, she had failed to rejoin him for other movies. He hadn't asked again anyway.

She wasn't sure how long this would last, keeping him occupied with two decades' worth of catch up, within the confines of his prison. Sometimes the hostility he radiated was off the charts and had her reaching for the curtains to cover her mirrors all day. Other times were better. Today was right in the middle. He was social, yet snarky.

And he wasn't an ancestral specter, or her Grams, or her friends. All of the above, keeping secrets from her.

"If I had to guess, I'd say you know your way around a coffee maker," came the smooth baritone. She stood, dragging herself from the bed while he sauntered to the car that he'd driven to the ice cream shop. He was much closer now, leaning towards the window he was using as the reflective surface to see into her world, and throwing her a smirk as wide as it was patronizing. "Being such a wee one. Never knew any Bennett so vertically challenged, now that I think about it."

"You said you only met my grandmother."

"Right, and she has a few inches on you. Saw pictures of your family before, including your mom-" he stopped, eyes raised in surprise while he whistled, "tall drink of water, that one."

"Ew." She shuddered. "Don't talk about her like that."

"Like a man that can appreciate height in people?" he asked snidely. "Hey, does your boyfriend get neck aches for all the times he's gotta stoop so low to kiss you? Or do you prepare with a stool? Oh, wait. Don't tell me." He started chuckling. "He's Hobbit-sized himself."

She slammed the bathroom door on him, spreading a large towel across the mirror inside to keep him out. The shower, while not as long as she would've liked, dispelled stray sleep from her brain and when she stepped out, she was ready to face the day, eager to find Elena especially, and see what they could do about Caroline's Damon-centered downward spiral.

What she didn't count on were the mind-numbing lectures all morning, her teachers droning on in voices designed to invite lulling eyes and faint snores. She caught herself drifting twice, before scowling to herself, Kai's voice playing a single word in sing-song repeat between her ears.

 _Coffee coffee coffee._

Damn, and she'd forgotten to make it this morning, probably a subconscious reaction to his taunts about her height. And why did he need to pick at it, whether her boyfriend cared if it was uncomfortable kissing her? Never mind that there currently was no such person in her life, but of the handful of boys so far that she'd let get close enough to hit any base-no complaints, none at all. Not that it was any of Kai's business, and not as if, either, he didn't know it himself, the lack of a steady boyfriend. They shared enough brain time-except maybe in the past few months there really wasn't much chance for her to flirt with any of the boys that caught her eye. Now that she thought about it, the last time she'd really checked anyone out was Stefan and his back, which had been more on Elena's behalf.

Pathetic, that.

So maybe Kai didn't know for sure, but his comments were still off-putting, and probably mostly due to his own bitterness. And boredom.

She stared at the chalkboard, trying to make sense of the latest formulas in her advanced integrated math lecture, foggy thoughts drifting in if Kai had had a girlfriend himself when he'd decided to go on his killer rampage. What would his parents have told her? And really, what kind of girl would've dated someone like him?

He could pull off charming, though. Was it Charles Manson who'd had women fawning all over his crazy ass? Maybe that was Kai. She could see it. Pick an unsuspecting woman, someone that maybe he carried enough attraction to-a quiet, unassuming college girl, fresh-faced and pretty, smart enough to catch his interest and secretly drawn to the bad boys herself. And tall, duh. With a nice rack and junk in the trunk a la his Baywatch babes, but also not the kind of girl to flaunt it. He'd probably troll the library for that type, Bonnie guessed, based on what she now knew of his preferences.

For a smug psychopath, he sure was predictable.

Bonnie squinted now at the equations written in chalk, growing fuzzier by the moment. Did her teacher know just how hypnotic her voice was? Or were her hazy thoughts on her newest ally just putting her to sleep?

Then her head dropped, succumbing to the weight of gravity.

-oOoOo-

Foreign emotions curdled inside his gut like month-old milk, snaking its way up to his throat. When he wasn't busy trying not to choke on it, he was picking at the scabs inside his brain, new ones that formed the latest scar tissue inside a mind already pocked with old wounds, crater deep.

Since Bonnie left him, his thoughts had dwelled on a repeat cycle-of his dead siblings, of the surviving ones, of his parents, and his coven, Sheila Bennett and her granddaughter, and their misbegotten southern town. Every once in a while, he turned them off, immersed himself in the high-quality sights and sounds of blue-ray movies, all of them violent because that's what Bonnie had chosen for him. She was trying to psyche him out, see if the exposure to all that blood and gore and senseless death triggered familiar reactions inside him.

For not-yet-sixteen, she was plenty versed in mindfucking. He really liked that, especially since it was paired, ironically enough, with the one quality about her that had robbed him of peace for the last couple weeks now.

'Care' was one of the bad four letter words that he'd successfully kept out of his lingo for a very, very, very long time. In a twist of fate, the witch now entwined by way of a mystical link with himself and his prison world also happened to be saddled with too much of it. Brimming with compassion and all the rot that came with it. Which in turn infected him, by way of that stupid link.

That kind of thing was prone to giving her bad ideas, like trying the locator spell again, to find her friend's sister. The one he was sure had probably been turned, based on Bonnie's visions.

"Why bother?" he asked. "She's a vampire. You find her, she'll only snack on you."

"So I know for sure. The last dream I had of her-well, you saw. Something else happened. And Matt-"

"Oh, I can't wait to eavesdrop on that conversation. 'Hey, buddy, found your sister and the good news is, she was dead either way.' Yup, that'll go over well."

Words that fell on deaf ears, while he watched her try her mojo once more, those foreign waves of nauseating things churning away in his belly growing stronger the better her casting went. It took her several tries, and on the last one he finally caved in, chuckling at her lack of foresight in order to keep his face from showing just how badly he wanted to throttle her.

"Have you never watched homicide shows of any kind?" he asked. "How do bodies end up, Bonnie?"

There went the little pucker of her brow, like it puzzled her that he wasn't just offering her clear answers. Then she rolled her eyes. "Drowned, buried, or burned."

He raised his brows. "And what do you think you would need, as the good little elemental witch your granny's training you to be, to help move along this spell? You designed it to be selective. You've got the girl's hair, your blood. What're you missing? C'mon. My brother at ten knew this one."

"This isn't just any old locator spell."

"Exactly. Quit being sloppy."

Her nostrils flared in irritation, then she paced, arms crossed and muttering to herself as she frowned down at the map. "Drowned, buried, or burned..." she repeated in a whisper.

It didn't take her long, after that. With a shrewd-eyed look back at him through the mirror, she disappeared from the room for a few minutes, returning with a vial of water, a bag of dirt, and a candle, each of which she placed at the points of the triangle that she'd drawn on the map, bordered by a large circle. Without another word to him, she lit the candle with her mind, using a dropper to spill her blood from another vial, all along the edges of the triangle.

Kai watched it, his fists clenching and loosening in rhythm while he longed to be in the room with her, taking in all that secondhand magic. He had to turn his back, especially when she faced him with that gleam of triumph in her eyes and all he could do was resist another urge to punch the mirror, right where her face was, the desire gripping him with equal amounts of pain and pleasure.

"I found her," she said, breathless, her chest heaving from the effort of the spell and the smile she gave him extra wide with excitement. But it quickly fell; the thought must have crossed her mind, what the consequences were of 'finding' the girl who'd been missing for weeks now.

"Have fun explaining yourself to the cops." He tossed that over his shoulder, not bothering to see her reaction, but feeling the force of her glare.

But the "Thanks, Kai" that she called to his back faltered his steps, had him hesitating, before he left the room for good. Twenty minutes, was how long he lasted staying away.

When he found her again, the view from the window of her car showed her form at a distance, huddled on one side of a hill near a waterfall. She sat motionless, staring down at something he failed to see but could well imagine.

Bonnie didn't move for a long time. He at his lunch slowly, finishing by the time she made it back to her car, and when she spotted him through the car window, a short puff of angry breath was all she managed. Not directed at him, he could tell.

Wordlessly, she wiped off dirt-spattered hands before climbing back inside the driver's seat. He kept sight of her in the mirror while she stewed in her thoughts on the ride home. They weren't in the same dimension and yet he could feel it, the fury coming off her, practically singeing the air around her. He was shocked that she hadn't set fire to the dashboard by accident.

But she said nothing except a whispered "crap," which came at the tail end, right when she pulled into her driveway. Her father's car was there, and also Sheila Bennett's sedan.

"Sooo the last thing I need right now," she muttered, leaning her forehead against the wheel and then proceeding to bump it, hard, several times.

"Glad I'm not you right now," he said cheerfully. "Don't you wish you could just portal jump back into _mi casa_ over here?"

"I wish," she said fiercely. "That I could go back in time a month, and keep Vicky Donovan from ending up dead in the mud."

-oOoOo-

She stood in the old Fell's Church clearing, Emily beside her and speaking in low tones about yet another vague cloud of doom hanging over everyone's heads. Bonnie walked away from her, catching a pale figure disappear behind the shadows of the forest. Emily was calling for her, but when she turned to face the woman, pale fingers streaked with dirt reached out, gripping her arms, sharp nails digging into her skin.

Bonnie knew before she whirled back what she would find. Greasy hair tangled with coiling worms. Glassy eyes and a mouth coated with brown, crusty blood.

"Too late," Vicky said, sadness filling her decayed face.

"Should've kept better friends," Bonnie said, keeping guilt at bay easily. None of this was her fault, but she damn well refused to let it happen again.

In the corner, she spied two other forms walking along, oblivious to everything but their own bickering voices.

"-warned you to stay away from him. He'll hurt you! But you never listen, because you think everything's a competition!"

Elena's features filled with anger and worry, turning her brown eyes hard.

The blonde next to her let out a tinkly laugh of scorn. "You gotta be kidding. It's never a competition. You get handed the trophies without even trying."

"Grow up."

"Get lost."

"Take great care," came the third voice approaching, urgency in her tone. The rustle of heavy, long skirts preceded her arrival. "These threats face you at every turn. Not all of them will appear your enemy."

Bonnie turned her back on them, closing her eyes, but Emily's seething whispers filled her ears anyway while her friends' argument reached new levels of high-pitched outrage. Meanwhile, in the background, Vicky started keening, low and inhuman and sad.

She closed her eyes.

 _Bonnie..._

Kai's voice, sounding much like he was trying not to laugh.

 _Wakey wakey, sleeping beauty!_

She jumped up, something sharp jabbing her cheek, and she flinched away, swallowing a yelp. Her pencil, still sticking out from her fingers, had stabbed her when she woke. The girl next to her was staring like she'd grown two heads. Bonnie muttered something grumpy and rude while she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, glad the teacher hadn't caught her.

Then she turned her head the other way.

Emily sat there, creepy and smiling and intense as ever. Bonnie almost screamed-until she saw, a few seats down, that Kai was sitting on an empty desk, swinging his legs while he stared at them. Brows raised, he pointed two fingers at his eyes, then at Emily, and then twirled a single index finger in a circle next to his ear.

Bonnie sighed in total aggravation. In doing so, she woke up for real then.

How she knew it? Because she was in her pajamas, at the sight of Old Fell's Church. No Emily, or Vicky, or anything except the sound, in the distance, of morning traffic from the nearby highway. Just like how she'd woken up a few days before. Sleepwalking her way to the same area of dirt.

Bonnie stopped by her grandmother's on the way to school. She could've faked a note to explain her lateness, but preferred something solid to back her up. Haltingly, she spoke about her dreams, Emily, the insomnia, the locator spell-but still, Bonnie couldn't share about Vicky's corpse.

Or Kai.

"Why do I get the feeling there's more you're not telling me?" Grams said, eyeing her suspiciously.

That raised her hackles. "I do learn from the best," Bonnie muttered.

Which made the older woman's eyes grow wide with alarm. "Child, you better say what's wrong. There's something else, I know it. I've been waiting for you to ask, but instead you're just withdrawing, acting different." Her head shook in dismay. "I should've told you. I think I made a mistake, but I panicked, you see-"

When Grams broke off, Bonnie said nothing to fill the silence, just tossed a gaze to the mirror in the living room. Kai was there, watching far too closely. She threw him a glare, jutting with her chin for him to leave.

He gave back a disbelieving eyeroll and just crept even closer to the edge of the frame.

"I got a letter," said her grandmother, dropping to the couch and sitting there expectantly, waiting for Bonnie to join. She did, albeit reluctantly, because while she wanted answers, she also hated being later than she was for school. Her dad was going to seriously flip. "It was from a woman who died a long time ago, and whose coven I still work closely with. They know a little something about prophecies, Bonnie."

"They must make a killing with palm readings," she said glibly.

Grams pursed her mouth. "Do I need to remind you that this is serious?"

Bonnie flung her head against the couch, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. "Sure, why not? I don't have enough people giving me dire warnings."

Grams ignored that, her gaze turning even more sober. "Bonnie. The letter said that you would be the last of the line."

Bonnie stared blankly. "Last in line for what? 'Cause I don't get hyped up on shopping or anything. I usually do trail behind at the checkout counter. At least whenever I'm with Elena or Caroline."

"You would be the last of _our_ line. The Bennetts. And your friends? They help you along to your own demise." The lines on her grandmother's face grew taut, her gaze laser-sharp and focused with anger. "I couldn't let you throw yourself away, so I found a spell to prevent that."

And now it began to form the picture as a whole. Her grandmother's weird behavior, the sudden change in how she viewed Elena and Caroline. The push to immerse Bonnie in magic, out of the blue, when for so long she'd been ignorant and sheltered.

The night of the comet, and those last stray words. _You forced my hand...you needed a safeguard._

"Oh, my God," Bonnie gasped, sitting up. She stared at the mirror, meeting gray eyes clouded over with stormy indignation. He wasn't a fan of this reveal any more than she was.

"What did you do?" she asked her grandmother, her voice sounding foreign to her own ears. Cold and steely, like it could cut something and leave a trail of icy smoke in its wake.

She sounded, she realized, like Kai.

"When supernatural creatures die, there's what's called the other side that serves as a rest stop for their souls. Depending on the nature of their choices in life, they can either move up or down from there." Grams squared her shoulders, her gaze turning determined. "For witches, we have the ancestral plane as an additional buffer. It allows us a haven, before we find our final resting place. It's there that a witch can also make a second go of it."

"Second go of it?" Bonnie frowned. "What's that mean?"

"I have to protect my own," Grams said. "Can't have you running off getting killed before you've even reached voting age, child. If something happens to you, I made a bridge. Connects you to a dimension where you can escape from the ancestral plane and find your way back here."

"Grams-" How was that even possible? "You're that powerful? I thought you said we're not gods. That sounds crazy close to toeing the line. What you did."

"I had help. And yes, Bonnie. When I need to be, for the people that deserve it-I'll tear down mountains if I have to."

Any questions she had were stalled, though, by the sound of her grandmother's telephone ringing. As soon as Grams heard the voice on the other end, Bonnie knew who it was, judging by the abrupt pinched expression and the enormous sigh that meant their conversation would continue later.

"Yes, Rudy, she's here. She was having some problems. I'll get a note out for her." Then stayed on for a second longer, her grandmother's eyes rolling to the ceiling. "I'll be sure not to let her go to class with a voodoo doll poking out of her backpack. What're you thinking? Of course she doesn't bring her supplies into school! Do I seem like the type to encourage my granddaughter to be so flagrant?"

But when she hung up, Grams turned to her. "Take those books and the tea leaves out of your bag. I know you carry them around. God forbid you get searched by truancy officers and they mistake those leaves for the other kind."

"Fine, but we're not done," Bonnie said darkly, before picking up her things and scrambling to her car to get to class.

-oOoOo-

She avoided him for the rest of the day. Super annoying, that.

He was starting to resent it, the need to keep tabs on her. Granted, he'd spent a few thousand days without much of a game plan to his life, and could do with some purpose. He'd even welcomed it at first, but this was pushing it.

Especially since, in the beginning, what got him excited was the thrill of having Bonnie playing into his hands, of turning her into not just his project-slash-secret weapon with multiple uses-his own personal escape hatch and source of magical fix-it-but also even his protégé.

In the beginning...

Kai drummed his fingers, waiting with his patented air of nonchalance while she approached her car, her steps hurried and shoulders hunched around the books she clutched to her chest. A figure in dark clothes walked closely beside her. Kai perked his head up, at the ready for a closer look at the pushy, volatile and extremely annoying Salvatore vampire.

"-leave me alone or I swear I'll-"

"Ah-ah." The vampire blocked her way to the car door. All Kai could see was a black jacket and a glimpse of Bonnie's face, her fury roaring to life in her eyes but everything else about her muted.

 _Why hide it, Bonnie? Let yourself go._

"No threats." Damon leaned close, towering over her while his voice pitched low and soft. "A, you hurt me last time, and B, I mean you no harm."

Bonnie glared up with her usual fierceness, even while Damon tilted his head lower.

Too close-what the fuck was he playing at?

"Look, believe it or not, Bonnie, I wanna protect you."

She leaned away, disbelief in her features and Kai felt a rush of relief, that she was smarter than her friends and knew better than to fall for Damon's obvious ploy.

"Let me help you get Emily off your back."

"How do you know about her?"

"I know a lot of things," Damon replied quickly, pressing his body against her so she was forced to retreat until her back hit the car parked next to hers. "I know more about that crystal than you do, and I know that she's using it to creep inside you."

Damon punctuated his words by caressing the side of Bonnie's face. A familiar surge of violence worked its way from Kai's gut, suffusing his chest and spreading down his arms until he itched to kill something. God, why wasn't there even snakes or spiders in this world? Something live and twitchy that he could rob of life.

But then, that was just misdirected anger and they didn't deserve such treatment...was the awful-tasting thought that reared its head from out of nowhere.

Fucking Sheila Bennett and her backwards-ass casting that somehow gave him- _feelings_.

Damon's face was incredibly close to Bonnie's, while he opened her door for her. "So, next time she comes out to play, you tell her." Kai's hands escaped his pockets, and he lifted them up to the mirror, squeezing harder as he grit his teeth and growled. "A deal's a deal."

She stepped inside the car, looking for all the world like the scared defenseless teenybopper that he knew she wasn't.

He let out a yell, wishing he wasn't trapped inside his goddamn prison.

"The hell was that?" he demanded, as soon as she was inside the car.

"Nothing," she muttered.

"How does he know about Emily? You been talking to him about her?"

"What-no!" She finally looked up, meeting his gaze in the rearview mirror. Then she looked back out, her stare through the window turning thoughtful. "Sounds like he knew her personally."

"Bonnie," he said, laughing at first then biting his lip hard while he pocketed his clenched fists. "He was probably the one that killed her. She was burned to death at the stake. You read the journal, right? Don't tell me you believe his line about protecting you. He's an asshole."

"So are you. Yet here we are."

"Okay, point to you. But, I got my just desserts. Matter of fact, I'm sensing it's still in progress." He angled his head in the direction where he last saw the vampire walk off. "Has he?"

She eyed him wonderingly. "Chill, okay? Of course I don't believe him. But I had to play dumb and helpless. Can't let Mr. Big Bad Vampire know I've been working on giving him aneurysms."

That stopped him short. "Really? Who've you been practicing on?"

Her eyes suddenly grew shuttered as she reached into her bag.

"Oh, right, because it's not the 'show and tell Kai' portion of the week," he taunted. "What, are you torturing puppies or something?"

Her face grew alarmed, causing him to subconsciously mimic her look, eyes widening as he gaped at her. "Wha-Bonnie- _are_ you torturing puppies?"

She threw a scrap of fabric over the mirror, breaking the link.

Why wouldn't she share something like that with him? At least he could get in on some of the fun. But the muscles under his eye twitched at the thought, his stomach wrenching as images of puppies floated to mind, small furry bodies writhing in agony under Bonnie mentally assaulting their tiny cerebral blood vessels. It made him feel-

-sick?

To distract himself, he buried his nose in more books, paging through the texts he'd brought back from Portland. In all his years researching the Gemini magic that created prison worlds, as well as the numerous spells that originated from the Bennett family trees, he'd yet to encounter one that involved bridging dimensions the way Sheila had described. It was improbable, when one dimension was an exact, inanimate replica of the real world, and the other was a totally separate plane of existence.

But of course, with a Bennett involved, why not? He really should've thought of it. All this time spent wondering how one irritatingly happy-go-lucky sequestered little witchling had come stumbling into his life-was he that off his game? It had never once crossed his mind to suspect that her own grandmother was the culprit.

Such a spell would've required huge amounts of power-and Sheila had said she had help, but really, she'd have needed a truckload of it.

Dozens of witches. A coven, even-or if not that, then somebody-

-somebody...who wielded the power of one.

"Holy shitake mushrooms," Kai said softly, looking up from the text he was reading, his jaw dropping as he stared dumbly at a wall. Then he scoffed, because there was just no way-he had to be out of his damn mind to even imagine it, but who else could've done this? Sheila Bennett only intended for her granddaughter to have a 'get out of jail free' card by way of his prison world. But in choosing such a world for Bonnie, she'd sought out the help of a resident expert who undoubtedly saw an opportunity to get his fingers in the pie.

Kai started laughing, part from disbelief and part from just how bad a joke it all was. His life. Minutes later, he was on the floor, clutching his belly, trying to control himself but still, he couldn't stop.

It made sense. Bonnie would never have formed the dots, and he was willing to bet even Sheila had no clue just what the fuck was happening, but now the whole thing fell neatly into place.

But the question was...did he really need to shine any light on it?

-oOoOo-

The problem with having Caroline and Elena as friends? That when they bickered over big or dumb things, what followed when they made up and the world was right and hunky-dory again were some epically bad choices. Usually courtesy of Caroline and her bright ideas.

The whole 'My necklace', 'no mine,' argument only got settled after Bonnie sorta kinda convinced her friend to finally accept the notion that she was a witch. Which meant, naturally, that Caroline once more focused on the witch's talisman-only this time, to get in touch with Emily. Via a séance.

And of course, she and Elena went right along with it, since being in Caroline's good graces was such a rare commodity these days. That, and also, maybe she was onto something. It wasn't as if Bonnie had other plans in place to figure out what Emily really wanted. Mostly, she'd relegated her into the background.

She was still reeling from the conversation with Grams and her encounter with Damon and-oh, yes, finding Vicky's corpse buried in dirt. None of which she wanted to clue her friends in on. It was enough having Kai pestering her with questions.

So, sure. Why not try this thing with Emily? Take the proverbial bull by the horns.

Seemed like a good idea, until they sat upstairs, in the dark bedroom lit only by a few candles. Elena's face flickered with shadows and misgiving, while Caroline's still held traces of skepticism, but she did her best to hide it, throwing herself into the fray and giving instructions like she was the one who knew anything about witchcraft. Soon, she urged Bonnie to initiate contact.

"Emily, you there?" Bonnie called lamely.

Caroline's exasperation was clear. "Really? 'Emily, you there?' That's all you got? C'mon!" And then slapped her hand deftly.

"Fine, geeze."

Bonnie rolled her eyes before closing them. No, she wasn't going to be contorting her face and overacting while reaching out to an ancestor who had given her insomnia for days now.

"Emily, I call on you. I know you have a message. I'm here to listen."

The candle flames flared up. Bonnie made a show of getting worked up then, seeing how her friends were reacting. Elena and Caroline dropped her hands, both their faces clearly shocked that-ta-da! Here was magic actually at work. Duh.

"Did that-"

"Yeah, it happened."

And both turned to Bonnie, on the verge of full freak-out mode. But Caroline pressed on gamely, and Bonnie ignored the presence at her shoulder, knew that if she turned, a face framed in a large bonnet would be right at her side.

 _"Bonnie, you must stop playing parlor tricks."_

The windows slammed open, wind howling in their ears, and the candles died out, leaving them in pitch black. Bonnie got to her feet, ripping the medallion off her neck and throwing it on the floor.

Emily stood in the corner, her face grave.

"I'm done," Bonnie said angrily, hoping it came across as fear instead of the pure resentment that was building inside of her. What right did Emily have to put all of this on her?

When Elena turned the lights on, the medallion was gone.

 _"I'm disappointed. How many times will you disown your necklace?"_

Her friends were terrified, but just shy of reaching hysterical. Elena's first instinct was to accuse Caroline of a prank, of being the one behind the missing necklace. Which really wasn't fair, but just then Bonnie didn't care. She let them bicker, keeping her focus on Emily as the woman slowly glided up to her from across the room.

Bonnie braced herself, waiting for impact but instead Emily passed through her and into the bathroom. She turned, throwing Bonnie an inscrutable look and then disappeared inside.

 _"Follow me, if you wish its return."_

I don't! she wanted to shout. The burden of carrying it was too much. Now there was a dead body- _Matt's_ sister's dead body-crawling with worms, needing a proper burial, and how was that gonna happen? It was like Kai had said. There was no walking into the police precinct and politely telling them her locator spell found Vicky.

She was on the point of running out of the room, giving her friends the excuse of being too scared to finish what they started. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Caroline to keep the necklace as her Christmas gift.

But she happened to glance at the bathroom mirror, and see Kai.

Brows raised, he waved to her, long fingers greeting her a careless hello.

They needed to talk. Properly. Without a stupid mirror between them.

She rushed inside the bathroom.

The door slammed shut instantly, lights flicking off. But Kai's world cast a glow, the dim light of his living room lamp allowing her to see.

"Stop it, Emily," she whispered.

The woman's face loomed large abruptly, right in front of her.

 _"You give me no choice,"_ said Emily, and then Bonnie felt a tug, then a rip, and she screamed. It wasn't like the way Kai had stolen her magic, where her skin felt like it was being torn from her. this time it was all of her-her soul, being prodded by something sharp and hot and painful, trying to make room for something else to take its place.

Through her screams, she registered from afar that her friends were shouting on the other side of the door.

And Kai-his low voice carrying an undertone of violence.

"Better way to handle it, Emily," he said.

 _"This is not your concern, Gemini."_

"Maybe before it wasn't, sure, but Sheila made it mine. Did you not get the memo?"

Bonnie ended her screams on a gasp, while Emily fell away from her, turning towards the mirror.

 _"I'm aware of the connection. It has yet to prove itself useful."_

"Well, I'm a resourceful guy. Even with this mirror as my cage, I've been pretty helpful with your latest Bennett witch-in-training." He smirked back at them, hands in his pockets. "Imagine how awesome it'd be if I was actually, ya know, out there in 3D."

Emily Bennett studied him without giving anything away in her stony gaze. Then she turned back to Bonnie, with the same emotionless look.

 _"Perhaps what's required is a test,"_ she said, then rushed forward once more.

This time, Bonnie didn't scream, just covered her face, and wished for it to end.

-oOoOo-

He watched it all happen, a part of him wondering why it mattered while another part, surprisingly vocal, raged against the act. Another specter, another possession. Same petite form, in the eye of an otherworldly storm.

This time, her ancestor's doing. Sad but funny.

The door swung open, revealing a pair of wide-eyed frightened faces. Bonnie slowly raised her head, and if her two friends couldn't see for themselves that she wasn't herself, then they were dumber than rocks.

 _"I'm fine,"_ she said evenly, in a voice not her own. _"Everything's fine."_

They all disappeared downstairs. He ran to follow, stopping short when the mirror blocked him and he raised clenched fists, battering the glass-

Which shattered. All to pieces on the bathroom counter.

For a second, he just blinked. Confused and disoriented and wondering how it was that now he stood on the other side. Almost like the ball he'd thrown at Bonnie, that night that seemed so long ago now.

"What the fuck-" he held up his hands, picking up a large shard of glass.

Then it clicked, and he took off, following the sound of Bonnie's voice. Her friends didn't seem to hear or see him, but when he rushed by them, the blonde one looked agitated, her glance turning quickly left and right, like she'd felt the air that whooshed as he ran by.

He didn't have time to think about it.

Bonnie moved too quickly. He lost sight of her, Emily's words replayed in his mind, as well as Bonnie's dreams that he'd picked up on over the last week. In the distance, crunching twigs gave him a clue where she was headed.

She'd plunged inside the woods, probably heading to that same clearing Bonnie had dreamt of repeatedly-Old Fell's Church, where something wicked lay, he was sure now.

He ran for long minutes, but he'd had practice lately, was in top shape, so it didn't take him long to catch up to Bonnie. Damon-that annoying piece of shit-was in her face. He couldn't hear them, was also too far to reach them, but he smiled widely when her hand lifted, tossing the vampire against a tree and impaling him without her even breaking stride.

She made quick work of forming a pentagram circle. Kai hovered along its edges, waiting.

 _"You murdered your kin,"_ Emily said. _"In return, your siblings required retribution, which you allowed. Why?"_

"Why not?" he replied glibly, but his gut clenched with familiar tension at the mention of his family.

 _"'Tis not the time for masks, Malachai Parker. You have seen the spirits, I know. You've died far too often not to. They ask for more than retribution."_

She dropped the large stick, and stood within the confines of her circle.

The other Salvatore arrived, helping his brother off the tree.

 _"Are you ready to earn your penance?"_ Emily asked, and then, without waiting for his answer, turned to address the vampires.

 _"I won't let you unleash them into this world!"_ she called to the brothers.

The pair of vampires started arguing. Emily kept up her share of the conversation, and Kai caught on, more nuggets of info seeping in from the argument to give him a better picture of the shit that was brewing in Mystic Falls.

This was so not on his list of things to do for the night's program. He cast a wearied look up at the sky-a perfect moment, turned out, to serve as reminder. Above his head were clouds dimming the world, promising rain. Unlike the clear, unimpeded view of the stars that faced him every night in Mystic Falls, in his prison.

He was out. Actually out, in the breathing, pulsing, crappy mess of the real world and it was unbearably stupid, how much joy he felt just then. For the first time in almost sixteen years.

Was he ready to earn his penance?

Well, why the fuck not?

Emily's spell centered on the talisman. She threw her arms up, her incantation raising the circle of fire around her higher, preventing Damon from interfering. The vampire stalked the edges, cursing.

Kai kept a close watch on him.

It lasted only seconds. Bonnie's other friend showed up, right at the end, just in time to witness Emily toss the necklace up. It exploded above her head. Damon's face contorted into a mask of rage and sorrow, the full force of his attention on Emily standing in the circle.

Kai rushed to Emily's side, gripping her arm. She glanced up, the only person seemingly capable of seeing him, and then her eyes closed, her head dropped, and the fire died, leaving the clearing quiet.

Bonnie opened her eyes, finding Kai. "Wha-"

"Hate to break a promise, Bonnie," he said. stealing long slivers of magic from her, turning away and breaking contact when her features pinched with pain. "But it's for a good cause."

Damon roared, speeding towards them, so quick that he was on top of Bonnie, ripping into her neck. The large glass still hand, Kai slashed at the vampire with the shard, slicing his neck open. Blood spilled out, but it healed just as quickly. He impaled Damon's belly with the glass, raising his other hand and forming a claw.

The vampire dropped on the ground, but not from an aneurysm. No, that would've been too obvious, less creative.

Bonnie hissed, clutching her neck, cutting accusing eyes at the vampires, but they weren't paying her heed. Stefan crouched on the ground beside his brother.

"Bonnie, stop, please," he called, while Damon writhed, pained gasps erupting from his mouth as he clutched his chest.

"Pay attention," Kai said cheerfully to Bonnie. "Something I've been meaning to practice, but never got a chance to."

Her friend approached carefully.

"Emily?" she asked.

"No, Elena, it's me." Bonnie stared down, doing a damn good impression of Emily by how cool and unbothered she seemed, watching Damon slowly dying.

"Maybe you wanna tell them those are the arteries around his heart misfiring," Kai said. "Irregular rhythm, reduced blood supply. Muscles failing to squeeze properly, all in that tiny space between his ribcage. And then it happens, over and over and over again. Fun, huh?"

"Bonnie, please," Elena said. "I can explain everything."

"Really?" Bonnie scoffed. "Like you have been all this time? I tried so hard, Elena. Gave you openings that you never took. You started covering for them, but ask yourself-until when? Until someone got hurt? Like me?" Then her face turned hard. "Or until someone dies again? Like Vicky."

"H-how do you know about that?"

"You're not the only one with secrets. Difference is, the ones you're keeping? They're growing body counts."

She turned her head at angle. "I'll handle the rest," she said coolly, addressing Kai without being obvious.

"Sure about that? I mean, I could do this all night, no complaints here. He bounces right back anyway, doesn't he?"

She sighed.

"Fine, have it your way." He released his hold, grinning coldly as he withdrew the magic that gripped Damon's heart in a state of abnormality, even for a vampire. That had felt-incredible. Such a damn high, being able to practice on someone without repercussions.

If this was penance, he really should've tried it sooner.

"I heard it all," Bonnie said to Stefan. "Now Damon's girlfriend's stuck in that tomb." She shrugged. "Biting me earned him a massive heart attack to go along with his poor little heartbreak. Sucks to be you, Damon." She stalked over to the vampire who lay beaten on the ground. "Don't ever come near me again."

She walked off, glancing at Kai quickly, as if she was in doubt what he would do next. He eyed the three in the clearing with boredom, thinking that this would've been a prime time to just get rid of them all. The headaches behind most of the problems that had hit the town. Even the girl. The Salvatores seemed to both have a thing for her. Eliminate their focus, and poof-bring the pair to their knees.

Bonnie paused; in her hesitation, he knew she was weighing how to get him to leave. This was a little fun, keeping her on her toes, but her neck was dripping blood still and a pair of vampires were mere feet away. He pocketed his hands, retreating, and turned to follow.

"Wasn't gonna kill them, Bonnie," he said, then added, "not yet anyway."

"Not ever with Elena," she said in a low whisper. "With the other two...not until we know everything."

Her friend moved forward, calling Bonnie's name.

Bonnie didn't pause, just kept going, without a single glance back.

"Do I get a thank you, at least?"

"Figured since it was my magic you sucked to save me, it kind of cancels out, doesn't it?"

He rolled his eyes. Women.

The trek back to her home was short, and mostly silent. He wasn't up for chatter just then, the novelty of being out and about in the world too absorbing. He could hear-a lot. Animals scurrying nearby, cicada bugs rattling away in the trees. In the distance, the sound of traffic.

When they got to her street, he had to stop for a minute. Standing in the middle of the road, he took in the cars in their driveways, the line of houses with the windows glowing lively and walls teeming with the sounds of conversation or television or music.

Neighbors, back home for the night.

Headlights were fast approaching. Kai stared at the car, transfixed.

"Hello!" A hand pulled him out of the way, and he stumbled to the sidewalk, right into Bonnie.

She shoved him away, then passed a hand over his unblinking face. "Earth to Kai," she said, shaking her head when all he did was grin back.

Inside her house was a different story. Dark, silent, and empty. Like his prison world, almost. Bonnie stalked upstairs and he waited, uncertain if he was supposed to follow, checking around him not necessarily for Bonnie's dad because the guy practically lived at work. It was Sheila and Emily he worried about.

"We don't have all day, Kai!" came the shout from somewhere above.

"Okey-dokey," he muttered to himself, making his way up the stairs slowly.

He stood at her doorway, watching her first clean and bandage the wound on her neck, before she tossed the alcohol wipes, ointment, and gauze packs at him, nodding to his hand. He glanced down, only just then realizing that he'd cut himself with the glass that he'd used on Damon.

While he wrapped his own cuts, she started rifling through a familiar duffel that housed her practice spell books and grimoires. His eyes locked onto the mirror that had served as their portal for the last couple months. He approached it, then eyed the walls and how different everything looked from the perspective of actually being inside, as opposed to outside looking in.

"This room's so girly," he remarked, picking up random stuffed animals on the bed and notebooks decorated in swirls and flowers.

"Right?" she said sarcastically. "What a surprise, because-" she stopped, indicating herself, "clearly not a member of club uterus."

 _If only,_ came the absent thought. Everything would be easier if she wasn't. But so much less enjoyable.

The wall behind a dresser and writing desk was lined with pictures of her and her friends, and on top of the desk rested schoolbooks and a snow globe with a young dusky-skinned ballerina, dressed in green and arrested in a twirl. He turned it over, unsurprised to find the turning mechanism.

Soft, light, tinkly music filled the room, and his eyes lit up with disbelief, as Bonnie's head popped up from beside the bed.

"Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy?" he asked.

"How do you know about it?"

"I had four sisters and we Geminis celebrated Christmas like any normal family. Jo was always the fairy. The other girls used to fight over who got to be Clara."

Then his grin turned sharp in remembrance.

"Let me guess," Bonnie said. "You snagged the part of the Mouse King." She flopped on the bed, brushing off a large tome. "I don't see it, you dancing around on a stage."

"No?" He dropped onto the chair in front of the writing desk, straddling it backwards and leaning his chin on the back of the chair. "You don't know how dramatic my coven is. They've got all kinds of programs for every age. Some of them pass for normal and healthy. A lot don't."

She looked at him evenly, and he stared back, while the last notes of music slowed and faded away in the air.

"Now that you're out, don't go killing your coven," she said bluntly.

"How about I get back to you on that?"

"Kai..."

"Look, I didn't do it, me being out here," he finally said. "But if you try to put me back-" he stopped, laughing, and really for once, unable to finish his sentence. He could only shrug, in the end.

"Didn't you?" asked Bonnie. "'Perhaps what's required is a test.' Emily's words. You made some kind of a deal with her, and she let you out but only on the condition that you passed." She frowned. "I guess saving me was the test, but how did she do it and what's it all mean?"

"It means you need help against a couple of jerks, and your family's desperate enough to turn to me." He rubbed his eyes. "Apparently, I'm just the right candidate for the role. On account of maybe being a bigger jerk? Who knows? I'm not gonna beat it to death, Bonnie. I'm here. Okay? For the foreseeable future, I can be Obi-wan to your Luke. Until it gets boring."

"Kai..." she trailed off, glancing at her nightstand abruptly, and then fiddled with a finger. "I hate to burst your bubble, but you should know something."

"What's this?" he asked, mocking. "You're actually sharing with me? Wow."

"You might be out, but Emily's not stupid. Neither is my Grams or whoever helped her do the spell." She slid the nightstand drawer out, taking out a familiar cracked, off-white ball that had disappeared awhile back.

"Wondered what happened to it," he murmured, tossing it up and down after she handed it to him.

"I tried to get rid of that thing. Somehow, it always came back."

Profound words, that hit him with dread.

"And this showed up. I didn't notice it until we got here." She held out her right hand, wiggling her ring finger. A black metal band with amber studs rested on her finger, that hadn't been there before. He knew, because he'd studied her hands plenty of times, noting the absence of jewelry.

"Looked at your wrist lately?" she asked, nodding to his arm.

His eyes flew to the band wrapped around his wrist, the worn leather there staring back at him innocuously-but now dotted with new, amber rocks, dark, jagged, and random.

"Huh," he said, scratching his head.

Should he have been angrier? Probably. His freedom came with a few catches. He was willing to work around it.

Bonnie's face was nervous, far more than his own, and he wondered why.

"Problem?"

"Yes!" she burst out. "That ball is always here! You threw it at my grandmother's mirror, so technically it should've been hanging around there. But no, it's _always_ in my room. I threw it out in the dump, it came back. I left it in my locker at school-" she tossed her hands up in aggravation. "There it was, back on my bed. Like a roach that won't leave or die-"

"Nice." He stood, pacing the room, absorbing some of her manic energy against his will. "Now it unfolds, the reason you're all hysterical. Also, your real opinion." He chuckled darkly. "You're mad at your family for tying you to a roach." He waved to himself with a hand. "Me."

"No! That's not-God, I just-it's weird, okay? I have, seriously, like a thousand things on my plate. Now this. You don't get it?"

"You're not gonna find me on your bed, Bonnie-" he cut off, his voice having dropped a few levels at his own words. He glanced up sharply, noted the flush on her face. What the hell? He walked closer, saw her blush worsen.

"Oh," he said, confused himself now, torn between doing the smart thing, which was to get himself away from more awkwardness, and the pressing need to make her blush more.

"Unless of course, you ask nice."

His eyes closed briefly, even as the words stumbled out. When he opened them, it was to find her staring up in shock, her cheeks now a deep, dark pink. What that meant, he tried with real effort not to delve into. Biting his lip, he offered a smirk, which was somehow the right thing to do. Her eyes narrowed into a glare, her normal facade returning.

The air between them changed into something more comfortable. He didn't know to be disappointed or relieved.

"Great," she muttered. "Am I gonna have to be your wingman? While you play catch-up?"

"What?"

"Because I'm underage, so if you need to meet girls, you're gonna need to hit up an Applebee's bar or something."

He scoffed. "I don't need a wingman." Then he considered it. "Anyway, I seem to remember you sneaking into a few clubs with your friend Caroline."

Who would make a far better wingman than Bonnie, now that he thought about it.

* * *

 **A/N:** Hi guys. :) I'm behind on my stories, so as of now no promises on the next update, but don't worry. Even with real life getting all up in my face, I'm still writing. I had half of the next chapter of the Charade up, but then I read some spoilers about Bonnie and Enzo in season 7. Like, WTF?! And also, hmmm...interesting? So I'm kind of retooling. But just know, I'm not abandoning any of the stories and actually have another in the pipeline. Once again, thanks for sticking with me, people. You're all awesome sauce.


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

 _The Turning Point_

The first night passed in a blur. The latest possession had drained Bonnie, and he was too engrossed in his newfound freedom to dwell on all the catches that Emily Bennett had snuck into his escape from the prison world.

Somehow, Bonnie made it to school the next morning, with a parting warning for him to avoid drawing attention to himself and not to leave the house just for this first day.

"I'm not your pet warlock," he'd retorted, not relishing the thought of sitting by the door the whole day waiting for her.

But all she could give back was a tired, pleading look, and he found himself giving in.

She pointed to the computer and the video game consoles in the den, giving vague instructions that sounded like alien code to his ears. But soon he saw it wasn't rocket science. On the monitor, she'd set it to a white page with the word 'GOOGLE' dead center, in bright blue lettering. Obnoxious, but simple enough.

He settled in after breakfast and typed the first thing he could think of in the little box. 'Parker murders Oregon 1994' - and then proceeded to waste half the day reading everything he could find on the murders and his family.

There were a few websites about it, a segment of the population with a hard-on for the history of mass murderers, somehow carrying enough fascination about his siblings' deaths to reflect on events surrounding the crime. Gave him a better picture of how it got tied up neatly. It was exactly as he'd imagined. His father had gone to great lengths to make sure closure had been presented to the world at large. Some other poor schmuck had been found days later, burned to a crisp in the family car, enough like his frame and bone structure to satisfy everyone. 'Remains of madman suspected of murdering siblings, found at scene of fiery accident.'

Natural progression meant that he spent hours on conspiracy theorists dismantling the events of May 9, 1994. Strangely, he found only a tiny amount of family pictures associated with any articles. His own picture was missing. As the years passed, less and less news coverage became available.

His father had covered their tracks well.

He took a break. The few images he'd seen of his siblings brought their faces back into painfully vivid detail, and he could almost hear Joey in his ear, begging him for one last round on the latest inane video games. Or Susie's round face and watery blue eyes while she whined to Jo about needing the newest denim jacket because her friend Tiffany had bragged about hers.

Their features lingered behind his lids, the cacophony of their voices reaching to a fevered pitch inside his head.

By the time the lunch hour hit, Kai was pacing the entire length of the first floor, excreting fluids through his eyeballs enough that tearing them out felt like a good choice.

'Crying,' Bonnie had called it.

Sucked.

The rest of the afternoon, he stayed away from the computer. There was a PS3 set up across the room. Slim pickings, the game selection, but there was one about a man stuck on a ship in outer space surrounded by zombies. He killed a few hours on that, every once in a while rubbing at the leather band still wrapped around his wrist.

When Bonnie came home, she threw her backpack on the kitchen table and made a beeline for the couch, flopping down without a word. He was no longer playing the game, but instead watching the news without really seeing or hearing much. Something about a cold front, another thing about shady methhead parents whose baby went missing under mysterious circumstances-but who cared?

He turned to her, holding up his wrist with the band.

"The rocks on this and your new ring," he said. "Look like the stone Emily destroyed."

"Yeah."

He didn't notice at what point they had found their way onto his band-he'd been too caught up in the rush of inflicting bodily harm on another creature for the first time in over fifteen years. And then later, busy reveling in his freedom in between arguing with Bonnie over where he was supposed to sleep.

She reached over, trying to pull it off his wrist.

"Hey, handsy," he protested, but half-hearted because secretly, it gave him a thrill, being touched. He argued with himself that any woman could've done it and provoked that vaguely unsettling reaction in his stomach. It'd been way too long, after all.

"Take it off, see what happens."

So he did, several times. Nothing.

She moved onto homework, while he kept up several hours of trial and error trying to figure out what mystical properties their complementary accessories held. Eventually, he got bored and slipped outside, where night had settled over.

While he stood on the porch, he could hear Bonnie upstairs. Across the street, a car eased onto the driveway, and an older woman stepped out. She stopped in her tracks, staring at him with puzzlement on her face that grew more alarmed when he grinned. That scared her off, had her bustling inside her home with another anxious glance back.

So now he could be seen. He eyed the band on his wrist, speculating.

"What're you doing?" came the hiss from behind a few moments later.

Bonnie was head to toe in flannel, barely a strip of skin showing aside from her face, hands, and feet, and then for good measure, with an oversized fluffy robe atop everything. He knew based on past mirror-shares that she was probably more comfortable in shorts and a tee or a tank for bed. Something lurched distastefully again in his belly, but he didn't delve into it.

"Think I'm gonna pounce on you?" he couldn't help mumbling. "I'm a killer, not a rapist. Those baser instincts miss me, Bonnie."

She blinked back in confusion. "What're you talking about?"

"You're bundled like an Eskimo."

"I'm cold," she said. "Have you noticed it's forty-five degrees out?"

No, actually. He was in his usual tee shirt layers and a hoodie, and the last thing on his mind was something as trivial as the weather. "Funny thing. That cloak of liberation's been keeping me warm."

She rolled her eyes, plopping down on the swing bench. He leaned against the column, fiddling with the strap.

"Saw the old lady across the street."

She groaned. "Why are you being so careless? Mrs. Shaw is the nosiest woman on this block and my dad mows the front lawn for her so she keeps an extra eye out on me for him."

He shrugged. "Go do a spell on her to forget she saw me."

"How?" Her gaze turned intrigued. "There's such a thing?"

"Probably? I kinda just made that up."

"Stefan knows I'm a witch. Remember we read that a vampire has compulsion? I bet he's gonna try to find me to square things. Elena will put him up to it." She stared morosely out at the street. "Maybe I can ask him to compel Mrs. Shaw into forgetting everything she saw from her driveway. I can tell him she saw me practice magic on my porch."

"Oh, yeah. You buddy up with the brother of the man who tried to rip out your jugular." He made the a-okay gesture with his hands. "Great idea."

"I didn't say I have to like it. It's your fault anyway."

"Bonnie," he said lightly, making his way over to sit beside her. "You're way too uptight. If she tattles then tell your Dad a boy stopped by to see you and you turned him away. Pretend you're...any other girl."

But she seemed distracted, looking now between him and the house across the street, her frowny face in full swing. Gears turning in her mind, he could tell.

"Mrs. Shaw noticed you," she said softly. "But they didn't-Elena. Stefan and Damon." She grabbed his hand again, far too comfortable now with touching him, and who knew when she'd crossed that line, had probably never really consciously thought about just when exactly the imprisoned sociopath, somewhat declawed, had joined the ranks of people that she not only allowed into her personal space, but vice versa.

He wasn't sure if was all that pleasant, her invading his comfort zone. Doing the same to her gave him no trouble, but now the shoe was on the other foot and he couldn't decide if he liked wearing it.

Karma, again.

She took off the straps of his band carefully. He swallowed, eyeing her bowed head and the look of concentration on her face, which was scrubbed of all make up. Caramel cheeks turned the faintest pink hue. She offered up a picture so fresh and enticing that he had to avert his gaze. Except when he moved his head, then the scent of something slightly fruity and soapy clean wafted to his nose from her hair. He struggled not to lean in and inhale more deeply.

Muffling a curse, he took his hand back, rubbing at the skin on his wrist that burned from her touch.

"I'm heading out," he announced, scooting further away.

"Wait one sec," she said, offering him the band to hold while she stood and scurried off the porch. He watched her cross the lawn, knocking on her neighbor's door. Mrs. Shaw answered instantly, looking automatically to the porch and the visible expression of relief that crossed the older woman's face was clear, even yards away.

He waved his hands in the air, jumping and cavorting around the porch. The old woman continued smiling at Bonnie, her earlier concern fading. It was like he wasn't even there, to Mrs. Shaw at least.

As he'd suspected.

"Now we know one thing that does," Bonnie said when she returned to the porch. "You're the invisible man without it. Strange but helpful. You're gonna have to keep it off when my Dad is home."

"Or I find another place to stay and rejoin society like the good citizen that I can be. Wouldn't wanna waste this spell that tainted me with bits and pieces of your conscience."

"How do we know for sure that Grams was responsible for that?"

"We don't." He had his own ideas how that happened, but keeping mum felt right, just then.

"Let's ask her."

"Oh, geeze," he muttered. "Now you want me to have tea with your grandmother. The woman locked me up, Bonnie."

"And somehow put our paths to cross. Why? Are you afraid of her?"

He scoffed.

But yeah. He sure as hell didn't want to be imprisoned again. Also, Sheila Bennett would be quick to notice the awkwardness between him and Bonnie and probably make the worst assumptions. Not that he cared, but still...such a dicey situation all around. Then again, it wasn't a terrible idea, per se. Maybe he only needed to get out a little on his own. Get laid. Take that edge off. Then he could think more clearly about every damn problem that, through no fault of his own, he was suddenly mired in, here in Mystic Falls.

He had his own plans. One of them including a trip back home, to Oregon. And that couldn't wait too long, but he already suspected that it would need to involve Bonnie's consent. And her actual self. If the baseball that she'd kept harping about was any indication, he was fairly sure there was an acceptable roaming range set for him to stray from her, and exploring beyond it would invite problems.

An experiment for another day.

"Let's table it," he said now, throwing her a grin loaded with bite. "I'm famished, not eating makes me cranky, and if you don't feed me, I'm gonna go to the Grill where I might run into more of your friends. Shaky combo."

"Go, then," she said dismissively. "I don't care if you see them. They won't know you. When you said you were heading out, I thought you meant someplace more exciting than the Grill."

But now he didn't want to. "Aren't you worried I won't play nice?"

"Not really." Her fingers twirled the new ring absently. "I'm not your warden. And I don't have to be, do I?" she added, her smile colored with shades of smugness. "Now that you have fuzzy wuzzy feelings like the rest of us. Welcome to the human race, Kai Parker."

His nostrils flared in annoyance. Classic textbook effort, and he saw right through it; she wanted him gone. Also, the fact she didn't seem to care indicated their bond, yet again, meant he was having as much of an effect on her as she was on him. Would they get to the point that they switched personalities entirely?

It wasn't a bright thought-imagining himself as a conscientious sixteen year old girl.

Although one thing would stay the same since it was their shared character trait-sneakiness.

"You're up to something," he accused her now, right as she started to turn and head back in. "Otherwise you wouldn't be so eager to get rid of me."

She snorted, crossing her arms. "You're not my warden, either, Kai."

"Buuuut I am your guest. Feed me."

"And I'm for sure _not_ your-" she paused, her face screwed up with indignation. " _House bitch_."

Which earned her a quirked brow. "Say what?" he asked. "At which point in the 21st century did they stop teaching you brats about the concept of being a good host?"

"You sound like a cranky old man. Who're you, Mr. Wilson?"

"I guess that makes you Dennis." He nudged her with an elbow. "Come on, you little punk. Let's see about leftovers, although I'm pretty sure I ate the last of them for lunch."

He walked back inside the house, Bonnie trailing behind him and grumbling the entire way to the kitchen, where he sat under soft pendant lights hanging overhead at the large island, waiting on her.

In a matter of minutes, a steaming plate of beef stew and mashed potatoes greeted him. He'd skipped it earlier during his rummaging, and for good reason. It looked precisely how it tasted. Like melted tires. The meat was rubbery and the potatoes awful, but he kept his commentary to a minimum. Apparently, papa Bennett had cooked it. The guardedness that was part and parcel of Bonnie, ever since he'd met her, lowered for a few moments, while she talked about helping her father cook earlier in the week.

"-we ended up having to call Grams for a consult," she added sheepishly. "Sort of saved the beef, but the potatoes..."

He chewed the food in question slowly, blank stare in place while his throat constricted, undecided on whether to choke back a laugh or spew out the offending items.

Her shoulders slumped. "Here." She tossed a napkin his way and he promptly spit his mouthful into it, crumpling it into a ball.

"He tried," she said, shrugging while she raided the fridge for the last cartons of Chinese food. "Least he's good at ordering take out."

And it wasn't disinterest, sitting there listening to her, but Kai just couldn't quite grasp how she was so attached to the guy. Her dad was barely home. So what if he decided to turn the stove on and throw some food into a pot? Was she that starved for affection that she couldn't see a pile of garbage when it was literally offered to her on a plate?

But as his brain followed that line of thought, he remembered his own father, and the portion of his childhood where the guy actually acted like one to him. There was a time that Kai had reveled in a father that took great pains to teach him not only magic, but how to change spark plugs on the car, and make a decent barbecue pulled pork.

It hadn't all been shitty, but how it eventually went down the drain still baffled him. Or maybe that was his sociopathy, not allowing him to fine tune others' response to acts that he'd indulged in on a whim or fit of anger. Such as draining a random witch of little slivers of magic; accidentally on purpose breaking one of his classmate's fingers; manipulating his way through coven gatherings by setting elders against each other. Joshua Parker wasn't the warmest person, was capable of turning a blind eye to what he liked to say were necessary evils-especially for the sake of the coven. But even certain things crossed a line for him. And by the time Kai realized getting dad's attention this way wasn't the most brilliant plan-

It was too late. Damage done. The era of being the family abomination was well underway.

Bonnie was still chattering, her back turned to him while she cleared out the sink. The turn of his thoughts were starting to annoy him, and why he couldn't get his mind off his family was a clear indication that tomorrow needed to go differently. There were things that needed doing; she knew that as well as he did. As he stared at her back encased in the fluffy robe that looked well-worn and achingly cozy, he found another reason to make sure day two offered him plenty of opportunities to find live bodies to connect with.

He needed to bang a chick. First come, first served. And by that, he meant any that weren't current residents of this house. Any whose first and last name didn't alliterate or begin with the second letter of the alphabet.

"I want to bury her," Bonnie said, whirling abruptly, her words bursting out like she'd been fighting to keep them from escaping. Her face was partially shadowed, the pendant light casting a soft glow on one side of her features, giving him a glimpse of the nervous resolve there. "And I need to tell Matt."

His soft snort of derision was her only response.

"It's the right thing to do."

"You're all kinds of deluded if you think I'll help you."

"Don't need your help."

"Or that I'll let you."

"Don't need your permission."

Somewhere inside him, a monster purred, licking its chops. "Your great-great-whatever Em didn't set me free just so I could point you in the direction of the state pen. So. No."

"Think you can stop me?"

"No need for that, Bonnie." He smiled at her with great patience, slurping up lo mein slowly. "Your friend's gonna think you're certified, and then when you produce his sister's corpse, he'll call the cops, you'll go to juvy, grow claws, hit the age of 18, do the rest of your time at the big house, and probably fill the slot of june bug cuz you're so gullible."

Every part of her bristled, even her robe, seemed like. "I guess you would know. You did massacre all those kids. I forgot to ask, did you run scenarios and numbers? Before that night?" She peered at him curiously. "What kind of jail time is normal for someone who drowns his own little brother?"

His fork clattered to his plate, the sound of it filling the room. They didn't break their stare, on her part he assumed because she was indulging her inner bitch and finding the novelty of it too enjoyable, probably, and on his part because his ears were roaring, the crevices inside his mind filling with the sound not of his dead siblings, but of his coven.

His father. That night, the spell, and the rending shriek that had gone unchecked between his ears, to the point where he thought they were bleeding, him on the ground curled into a fetal position trying to figure out how to stop it. And then it had, once he had crossed the threshold.

Once they'd jailed him.

"Sixteen years," he said softly. "Solitary confinement."

Her gaze remained even as he approached, his steps slow and easy, but he couldn't get his brain to follow suit, it felt scorched, needed ventilation. He suspected the best way to get that was to take the nearest sharp object and bury it in the side of her neck, about the only vulnerable part of her not covered in the robe.

"I didn't actually plan it," he confessed. "You'd think, right? I can be meticulous, ya know. But that night...it's not like I spent weeks hashing out which stair rails to tie a rope to that could carry the weight of a seventy-pound kid. Or how deep to bury the hunting knife, the right way to twist it so it pierced major organs in one shot."

When he stopped, it was inches from her face, near enough to feel her breath fanning his own neck collar. She glared at him but didn't look at all fazed by his words.

"I don't remember waking up that day and consciously thinking to myself-'Welp, lunch at BK and then dinner at home where you'll murder half your family.'" His finger reached out, tracing the fabric of her robe belt. That got a response-a tiny cringe. His jaw tightened, while he stared her down. "At some point, I did entertain thoughts. But I wouldn't call it premeditated."

She still stood her ground. "Bullying won't work on me."

"I'm not trying to intimidate you, Bonnie," he said, voice straining as he leaned in, letting his lips graze her ear. He was actually telling the truth here. His entire being was torn two ways just then, in a clear delineation of what he'd once been and who he was now. The monster, and the man. One part of him eager to rip her apart, piece by fleshy piece, with his bare hands.

The other part of him, dying to rip her clothes off. Just the clothes. To get to her skin-so he could taste every inch of her. Bury himself inside her, not so he could forget what he'd done but as a reminder that once, he'd been capable of normal things. Like getting close to someone without wanting to see pain bloom in their gaze.

He could make her scream, but not from fear.

She snatched her belt back from him, catching his fingers, and he grabbed her wrist in a grip caught between firm and frenzied. Of its own accord, his thumb rubbed the soft skin below her knuckles. Her quick inhale gave him no satisfaction. Neither did the way she tilted her head back, the defiance spelled out on her features almost but not quite hiding a spark of something else.

Her cheeks were turning the smallest hint rosy.

His own breathing slowed.

The kitchen was humid now, in a way it hadn't been just moments ago.

"Provoked," he whispered.

"What?" she breathed.

Their faces were so close right now, this time no possession or mirror or anything acted as a barrier or distraction, and Kai struggled, a buzz sounding suddenly above his head while jade eyes grew hazy and full pink lips parted the tiniest bit under his heavy, unwavering gaze-what the fuck was he doing? What was she?

 _Bzzzz-_

 _Pop!_

The kitchen plunged into darkness, while the sounds of what he assumed were shards of what had once been a fluorescent bulb showered the island.

Bonnie rushed away. A second later the kitchen brightened, and she stood by the switch for the recessed lights, blinking dazedly at him. Kai stepped backwards, way the hell back, as far away from her as he could get while trying to maintain a semblance of cool, covering with an indifferent smile thrown her way.

"I was provoked," he said, pouring whimsy into his tone and adding a careless shrug for good measure. "Not trying to excuse my actions, but that's what happened on May 9, 1994."

She stayed silent.

"And since you brought it up," he kept on, driven by an overwhelming need now to fill the silence, "I want it on record that I did my time. Maybe you could stop throwing it in my face? Since I did save you and your dead ancestor AKA my parole officer deemed that acceptable as a form of community service."

He could tell she was flustered-outright well out of her element, in the way her eyes were suddenly everywhere except on him. The trick was to pinpoint what caused that reaction. His words...or the moment they'd shared, before the light broke?

"Whatever," she mumbled, fumbling with her belt. "Just don't get in my way.

"Think that's actually my gig now. Where's your broom?"

"Pantry. Behind you." Then she dared a look his way. "You know that wasn't me, right?"

His return appraisal was skeptical. "Of the two people in this room now, only one has the ability to break a bulb long range. Without first having to suck the woo woo out of another witch."

"But I didn't do it, Kai."

"That same person is also the only one going through the emotional teenage phase that triggers things like, oh, bulbs freakishly exploding on their own, _Bonnie_."

"Could've fooled me," she muttered, glaring as she brushed past, shouldering him roughly while she stomped to her escape-from him, the situation, and the growing messiness between them. "I'm less of a headcase than you, or have you forgotten? And _don't_ miss any of the shards," she added with a spiteful glance back before she disappeared into the hallway.

He exhaled slowly, allowing his eyes to shut and his fists in his pockets to ease, as he said, under his breath, "Keep provoking me, Bon, see what happens."

-oOoOo-

The building was plunked in the middle of a rowhouse neighborhood, complete with a library and a post office. A quiet haven, sitting amidst the bustle of Bronxville, NY, in an area that wouldn't invite regular visits from both cops or criminals.

Everything about the building was nondescript and hard to remember, and even staring at it she was hard pressed to describe even to herself its separate elements. It squatted without any brilliance or polish to it, despite the cheery afternoon sun beaming on the rest of the city. The building was halfway between gray and brown, its glass doors offering no clue as to its commercial purpose, and sparse windows on each side except the south. There stood taller windows, that overlooked a small fenced terrace with a view of the park across the street.

The rest of it innocuously forgettable, since someone had clearly, to her trained eye, glamoured the building in a way that almost made it see-through. Made to be forgotten, the moment anyone stopped looking.

Sheila kept her gaze on it, as she stepped out of the car.

Presently, a tall man dressed for the office walked out of its door. A marked change from the last time she'd seen him months ago. Then he'd been in jeans and plaid flannel, hands dirtied like he was an honest man tilling soil. Except in his case, the soil in question had come from hallowed ground, desecrated by a quartet of witches in order to use as ingredients for an unsanctioned spell.

Now his appearance offered a marked contrast. A sports coat and khakis completed the middle management look, and he departed the building with a portfolio in hand, carrying it with clear relief on his face. The chilly fall air carried bite, and she watched him tuck his chin into the collar of his coat, hunching his shoulders as if to disappear. She ducked her own head, the gust of wind blowing her hair into disarray, as tried to follow him unnoticed.

Halfway down the block, he stopped abruptly.

His back rigid, he tossed a half-glance back, as he greeted her. "Sheila."

"Joshua." She reached his side slowly, carefully glancing around her. It wasn't as if this was a new environment for her, but Geminis were notoriously tricky and she was far from any kind of mood to entertain unpleasant surprises.

"I always knew you were nosy, but tailing people? Isn't that a bit beneath a woman of your years?"

She smiled at him, even as her hands snatched the portfolio and her mental incantation revealed its contents, too quickly for him to even attempt to hide or retrieve. The cover of his binder turned see-through as she perused it, serenely at first, before her eyes marginally widened.

"They got away from you again?" She tsked, passing him back the portfolio and ignoring the scowl on his face. "You keep losing your kids, Joshua. Terrible habit, that."

His answering smile was fleeting and tight. "Running away turned into their hobby, soon as the twins passed puberty."

She pursed her mouth, staring back at the building he'd just departed from. "Apparently they're good enough at running and staying gone that you need the services of a unique PI."

Clear dismay radiated off his form in waves; apparently he'd forgotten how well connected she was. "It's not often that you associate with an estranged former member of your coven. Even more rare for them to welcome you inside their place of business." She slid her hands inside her coat pockets, walking past him, not bothering to see if he followed.

Of course he did, but only after a few moments of hesitation.

"When I saw you go inside," she said dryly. "I half expected an explosion to follow."

"Ten years ago, you would've been correct."

"What's changed?"

His grimace became pronounced. "What else?"

That one, she didn't bother answering. For an asshole like Joshua Parker, karma had delivered plenty. First the death of his wife less than a year after delivering their last set of twins. Then the murders of his four other children-at the hands of his heir, no less. That one would have broken other men. For the ruler of a two thousand year old secretive, selective coven, it meant unyielding, almost unflinching stoicism, the kind that some would have called heartless. His own daughter certainly did.

Josette Parker had left the family home and cut off ties with the coven and her father, hiding out somewhere unknown, staying under everyone's radar. Coven elders suspected the help of a senior witch, perhaps someone from the Tribunal. But Joshua had never pursued any rumors, not even the ones that indicated Sheila's involvement. A few members of the council had assumed it meant war with the Bennett matriarch. But Joshua had dismissed it, turned their collective attention to other matters-namely, to Olivia and Lucas's protection, ushering them into a childhood raised as orphans, keeping tabs of them where no witch would think to look.

Away from the Geminis, he'd made sure his surviving set of heirs knew nothing but a stringent life, letting them suffer the knocks, bruises, and bleeds inherent in being raised under the foster system. Not always-he'd known to slip in time with an affectionate family here and there-had calculated everything to perfection.

He didn't want a repeat experience, having to accept another of his own was an utter monster.

Sheila hadn't always seen the value of it. Certainly his methods were nothing like what she espoused, but it was apples to oranges and time with numerous covens as well as with the Tribunal had taught her to stay in her own lane. So long as the international code was being met, there was no reason to intervene.

And she'd certainly done her share of poking her nose in already, bringing Josette into her tutelage. Which Joshua had turned a blind eye to for over a decade.

Which made him, in her eyes, several degrees shy of being a terrible father.

It was what she was banking on now, the reason why she'd gone all in to approach him this way. Olivia and Lucas had reached their majority age. Eighteen; the official era of prepping for the merge ceremony, when they turned twenty-two. Her sources had told her the pair had gone missing a month ago. Their fourth attempt at running away since being brought back into the Gemini fold.

Joshua's attempts to control them weren't going well, or so she'd heard.

"I can help, you know."

"Of course you can," he said evenly, but his brisk pace told her everything else. "Do I need to remind you that your presence here is bordering on trespassing? This is Gemini territory."

That sparked a wave of ill temper. The man was stubborn, arrogant, and clearly falling into incompetence, unable to even see how the house of cards that he'd built was tumbling around his ears. And despite his duplicity in their past dealings, she was still offering him help?

She waved a hand impatiently, freezing him just before he could start crossing the street.

"I suggest," she said in her best diplomatic tones, "You think long and hard about my offer. You were supposed to help me save my granddaughter. Instead, she goes through a personality transplant and I catch her talking to herself in front of a mirror all day, every day." The steel in her tone translated into an iron on grip on the man. His features contorted, the invisible vise of her magic tightening around him uncomfortably. "By right of Tribunal law, I could break every bone in your body right now without any consequence. Instead, I'm extending a helping hand."

Black eyes remained suspicious, interrupted only by the briefest flash of doubt. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"What did you slip into the linking spell?"

"Only what you requested. A mystical bridge, to tie your granddaughter to another realm-eargh!" His cry of pain went unnoticed by passersby, who continued on their way as if neither Sheila nor Joshua were standing on the street having a public confrontation involving his body being held ramrod straight by an unseen force.

She strolled easily up to him, ever so slightly loosening her grip. "I already ate my lunch, but I'm due for my afternoon tea."

His nostrils expanding and contracting seemed to indicate rage, but she knew better. He was biting back another sound of pain. She wasn't surprised when he nodded slightly, eyes broadcasting begrudging acceptance of her unspoken compromise.

"Why don't I join you," he grumbled. "We can hash it out like civilized witches."

"And you'd best serve up the truth this time. I've had it with your chicanery, Joshua."

This time when he offered up his broken smile, she saw a little hint of defeat in it.

"Would you believe, Sheila? So have I."

-oOoOo-

Kai didn't make it home the second night until just before dawn. She knew because she stayed up, wondering idly if he'd found someone to kill or have sex with. Preferably not both, and no sooner did that thought cross her mind than a wave of shame suffused her. Since meeting him, his actions hadn't shown her anything but someone unstable whose past was something that he'd already been punished for. He'd said as much himself. Parts of her rebelled against letting it go, though, and she couldn't help it. In her own experience, people didn't change overnight.

Except magic was involved and now, people _were_ changing. If not overnight, then a few months had done it.

On the second and third nights, he came home even later. He didn't stagger in drunk, never made much of a sound-probably his killer instincts on automatic, forever set to sneak-mode. But she could always tell, somehow, eyes snapping open as soon as he walked in. Her dad probably wouldn't have picked up on it, but then again Kai was nothing if not regimented about taking his band off as soon as he got on her block. She didn't even have to nag him to do it. Even if he goofed, her father would never know it, unable to see their unexpected houseguest thanks to the cloak that protected him, once the leather band disappeared from his wrist.

One of the few things that went their way was her father being called away on an extended trip overseas and Grams mysteriously AWOL all week, although she did call daily to check in. Every time, something in her grandmother's voice gave Bonnie the goosebumps, and it was nothing specifically said aloud. Yet it happened, and she grew to dread anytime the phone rang.

"What's wrong?" she finally asked Grams on the most recent call.

It was followed by a pause that went on forever. Bonnie was on the verge of wondering if the signal had died when she heard a sigh, and then the words that never meant anything good.

"We'll talk when I get back."

On the fourth night, Bonnie didn't bother waiting for Kai. He was busy, had roughly two decades to catch up on, his own business to attend to, and she didn't feel like pulling herself into that mess. Not to mention, she had no intention letting him ruin her own plans.

Vicky's body growing more and more decayed on that slopey little hill gnawed at the recesses of her brain, prompting impromptu visits to her unplanned, sloppy grave. Bonnie went once more after cheerleading practice that week, scoping out the area with an uncertain eye. But her resolve was overpowering. Doggedly, she attempted a cloaking spell that ended up leaving her legs invisible. The spell to change the color of her car was the only thing about her excursion that came easy. Levitating Vicky proved trickier, and she whispered a prayer for the girl as she fumblingly floated her inside the trunk, scanning the area all the while to ensure there was no witness.

Digging up and carting off a corpse shouldn't have been this involved, but it was trial and error and nobody was in her way. By the end of it, her uniform was a muddied mess.

On her way back home, she drove past the Grill.

By chance, the light turned red. Great timing. Bonnie slumped down in her seat, keeping her head low and her sunglasses in place. She tossed a glance to the window of the diner, gasping when she found Kai.

He sat in a booth, across from a brunette who was smiling and talking, by turns animated and then flirty. Kai, naturally, eating it all up, Bonnie saw, one arm extended along the back of his booth while he leaned back offering that smug little smirk, coaxing a lip-bite from the brunette that Bonnie could clearly read was a definite sign of interest. Someone would get laid, really soon.

Bonnie looked at the light.

 _Turn green c'mon hurry up stupid green green green..._

As fate would have it, the light did change.

 _About time._

But at the same moment that Kai's head swerved, casually, his eyes roaming and resting directly on Bonnie's car. She ducked her head lower, keeping her face averted. At the last second she couldn't help herself. When she turned to quickly glance back, the crease between his brow was just clearing, his face registering disbelief as he returned her stare.

Then his face turned expressionless, totally calm, the pucker in his brows gone. And he went back to his charming grin, once more focusing on his date.

Bonnie skedaddled, burning rubber as she left.

Burying Vicky was a trickier feat. Luckily, she had help on that one.

"I swear, Bonnie. You need to go out more. A trip to the cemetery on a Friday afternoon? Not exactly happy hour."

Caroline came stomping through the front door, keys jangling in hand and clunky heels clopping loudly on the tiles.

Which came to a screeching halt, when she saw Bonnie.

"What-" The blonde blinked rapidly, her eyes going from Bonnie's head and stomach to the blank space where her legs should've been. "I don't-" A shaky finger raised, dropped, then whipped back up, and her friend emitted what sounded like a cross between a shriek and a scream.

Bonnie ran forward, muffling her with a hand to her mouth.

"Stop it, Care," she seethed.

"Mmfwmmf!"

"I'm gonna let go, you're gonna be quieter. I'm fine, by the way. I just hid my legs."

Slowly, she pulled back, cautious as her friend's eyes remained wide and buggy. Bonnie wasn't a fan of histrionics, but unfortunately the blonde had a certain flair for it.

"On purpose?" Caroline demanded.

Bonnie rolled her eyes, jumping into the explanation. While she liked to think Kai was too busy working off a decade and a half of sexual frustration, there was no guarantee his innate nosiness wouldn't lead him to cut short his own fun.

The idiot.

Surprisingly, Caroline exceeded expectations. Her spells, her magic, all of that her friend took with aplomb because it wasn't as if she hadn't had a taste, with that seance. It hit Bonnie then that Caroline was as affected as the rest of them. That eternally snarky pep she wore like armor held up even when Bonnie stumbled out the explanation about the Salvatores and vampirism. More than likely Caroline had already figured out parts of the formula there, even on a subconscious level.

It was bringing her to the trunk and showing her Vicky, where Caroline's spirit took the expected hit.

The blonde vomited, all over Bonnie's garage. Probably a little bit over Bonnie's invisible sneakers.

A roll of paper towels, a bottle of Lysol, and three mini blonde freak-outs later, which equated to roughly twenty minutes, the pair were on their way to the Grove, the smaller cemetery on the south side of town where the Donovan family plot lay.

"Okay." Caroline nervously fingered her skirt and her hair, blowing out calming breaths while her eyes darted to the rearview mirror. She'd done that all through the ride. Bonnie suspected her friend was waiting any minute for Vicky's corpse to burst out from the trunk screaming bloody Mary. "How do I look?""

Caroline simpered, offering an innocent pout complete with wide eyes and fluttering lashes. It helped that Bonnie had come around twice and met the security guard on duty during the day, as well as the funeral parlor owner, Mr. Lawson, who was a decade away from becoming a permanent fixture himself on the trim little land speckled with neat headstones. He hadn't been so watchful on Bonnie's last scouting session, more than half his attention staying on the flat screen in his office showing reruns of Dr. Oz.

Meanwhile, the young, fresh out of college guard detail had an eye for anything in a skirt. She'd gotten a lot of info from him on the last visit, pretending t o be an out of town visitor with an elderly uncle shopping around for his burial plan.

"Like a lost little lamb," Bonnie said. "Only, ya know, hot."

"And hopefully not up for sacrificial slaughter," Caroline muttered, then her caught herself, looking stricken, right before alarm spread over her pert features. "Ohmigod...do you and your Grams do that?"

"Yes, every night before bed. We round up tiny woodland creatures for a bloody offering with just the butter knife."

It was hard, repressing the urge to throw her friend her fed-up look of death, but she managed, or close enough. Caroline returned with a sharp mocking glare of her own, before she fled the car.

Circling around, Bonnie parked on the side of the cemetery nearest the Donovan plot of land. It was on the furthest edge towards the back. One lone mausoleum stood there, gray stone cracked and chipped and the iron bars appearing partially bent, like someone had broken inside. She passed it by, stopping where Donovan names rested. In a corner was telltale opening, wide enough for accommodation.

Bonnie narrowed her attention on the wooden sheets in her backseat, water-resistant, bought from the home improvement store with the money she'd earned from several months of baby-sitting. She'd coated it with magic to boot, thinking to use it to erect something to serve as a barrier, keeping anyone out, human or otherwise. It was much as Vicky deserved. Never able to find peace in her short, troubled time on earth, the least Bonnie could do for her was make sure the girl rested undisturbed from now on.

She imagined the wooden planks at her feet, in layers, until they resembled a coffin. Long on the sides, short at the edges, the topmost part remaining open. The magic under her skin simmered, heating her with a warmth that felt comforting and let her know that it was working.

Distantly while she cast the spell, the sound of thunder reached her ears. She ignored it, focusing next on Vicky, trying to bring her corpse to rest inside the makeshift coffin. Her magic roiled, her stomach turning just a touch queasy and that was normal, the taste of death repellant to her powers that rooted in the natural, the living. And yet she held on, mystical energies curiously wrapping around the body, the vibrancy of her magic strangely fascinated by the obvious, odorous entropy it confronted.

Bonnie opened her eyes.

Vicky lay within the planks, wrapped in a white blanket from head to toe.

Rain began drizzling down then; there was no time to offer more than a whispered good-bye, one that she'd heard years back, at a distant cousin's funeral. She'd been young, but the priest in his somber black and the crowd of mourners wailing had left an impression.

"Blessed are the dead," she said softly, offering her face up to the sky, letting little droplets of water caress her lashes, feeling them trickle down her cheeks. "For they rest from their labors."

With a firm clatter, the final plank closed over Vicky's form. Bonnie parted her hands, letting the last of her magic work to disturb the grass, lowering the coffin in. Rain poured more heavily now, drenching her and battering the ground, leaving a sopping mess and making it harder to restore the ground.

Eventually the raindrops turned red. Crimson bloomed along the chest of her cheerleading uniform; in a daze she blinked at herself, before it registered. Sweeping the back of her hand across her nose and mouth, she wiped away the blood trickling there, then whirled, stalking across the yard back to the car, relieved that at least if nothing else she could finish up by making use of the shovel she'd bought last minute just for this scenario.

When she passed the mausoleum, a hand snaked out and grabbed her arm, yanking her roughly inside.

Her back collided against cold stone.

"Hey!" she exclaimed in protest. "Wha-"

"Shhh."

A storm-tossed gaze met hers, turbulent and promising more than a hint of violence. Kai glared down at her, one brow quirked.

"Get off me," she said hotly, pushing him away but he didn't budge, not even an inch, so she tried again, using the small vestige of magic left in her bones.

He flew across the space, landing harshly on the other side.

"Nice effort," he said, pushing off and straightening, before moseying back towards her. She backed away slowly; not that there was much room for escape, especially since her throw meant he was closer to the exit than she was. But she could at least put a few feet between them. "Too bad your well's dried up."

"That wasn't the last of my powers," she threatened with a bald-faced lie. "And why are you here? I haven't seen you in almost three days and you pick _now_ to show up? Go back to your clubbing, barhopping, and boozing."

His chortle irritated her, had her biting her tongue to keep from making more acidic comments about his new social life.

"I'm not kidding. Go away."

"It's petty to be all, 'ooh, you're never home' when technically it's not even my home."

"I don't think I said that. Ever."

"You sound like you want to."

"I really don't care what you do on your own time, as long as you're not building body counts."

"Okay, what's your take on me watching other people do that?"

She blinked back her reply, considering his question. "Who's doing that?"

"Your new history teacher." Then, when her jaw dropped in disbelief. "Oh snap, you had no idea." He grinned smugly. "Shocker, but not."

"That's what you've been up to all this time? Spying on school staff?"

"Among other things." He moved nearer, then lifted his hands in dismissal at her. "I'm not trying to hurt you, Bonnie."

"I know."

He stopped. "Why are you running away?"

She waved a hand impatiently. "You're doing that thing."

"Thing?" he drawled. "Have I mentioned how much language in today's youth sucks? I mean, the 90s wasn't exactly the Renaissance, but seriously you kids make our generation look like geniuses."

"I want you out of my face!"

"Why? So I don't notice the blood stains there? Or how about on your uniform? Which, by the way," he paused, drawing in a breath, his gaze arrested momentarily on her torso. She wasn't even sure if he was just brazenly staring at her chest or the blood on it, didn't have time to decide, before he swept a look back to her face, swallowing audibly. "Is ruined. It's a real bitch getting bloodstains out. Shame, ya know? You-" he cut another glance at her. "Could've looked like a normal girl for once in that. Without all that heavy mopey adolescent angst in your aura."

"I don't mope."

"You don't think so?" He gestured with a hand out to the outside, where torrential rain beat on the waiting world, so thick she could hardly see beyond the gray opaque sheet of water careening from the skies. "It's really getting old, Bonnie. How much you care. To the point where it's detrimental to your sanity. Your well-being." He laughed, rubbing at his chin where, she dimly realized, he'd suddenly sprouted unfamiliar fuzz. " _What_ is wrong with you? She wasn't even your friend."

"Matt is. He's worried sick about her. I don't care if we weren't friends. She couldn't stay covered in three inches of mud, Kai. Why don't you get it?"

He gave her a patient look.

Oh. Right.

What did it matter? She stalked past him, crossing her arms and glaring outside. "It's over and done with anyway. Too late to stop me."

"Sloppy, though. You left it where anyone could see an unfinished grave. Also, _where_ did your legs go?"

"I was going for the shovel in the car." Her scoff echoed disdainfully along the walls of the mausoleum. "Some jerk pulled me in here before I could finish. And don't worry about my body parts. I was...just messing around."

"Mmm. By messing around you mean you got a spell wrong in your quest to become a body snatcher with a heart of gold."

He came to a stop behind her, not quite touching but near enough that his length warmed her back. She didn't move away this time, just tilted her head, her eyes not meeting his but sensing that his gaze was on the side of her face, roaming her features. It wasn't the first time she'd felt him look this way at her; only now, she invited it, let him get his fill.

She wasn't stupid. Up until now, it had all been tucked in the corner of her mind, this thing between them. A thing that had sprouted rabid wings and taken off, ever since that night Emily freed him.

They were in deep trouble.

"Why go to so much effort, hmm?"

She shrugged.

"What, is Matt like your crush or something?"

"No."

She felt him shift fractionally closer. "Bonnie..."

Unbidden, the image of him through the diner popped up, and she started, remembering the girl he'd been with. She rounded on him, narrowing her eyes. "What happened to your date?" she asked.

"Wasn't a date," he said evenly. "What do you guys call it now? Hang up?"

Her exhaled puff of air was a sound of pure annoyance. "Did you cut short your hook-up so you could spy on me?"

"We were done, Bonnie. I left-"

"Right. To do your job and play watch dog. I'll make it easier for you, Kai. You're released from your duties, okay? Take the night off. Go back to your-whatever."

His hand found her arm again, viselike grip staying despite her best effort to pull away. He trapped her between himself and the wall, pressing close while his eyes shut and his breath ghosted over her face. Through the sudden flash of pain, the deceptive sense of tearing on her skin while she suffered the loss of magic, she made out his words, accents of an old spell in his soft incantation.

Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled again, softer this time, and with it came the easing of the flash storm. The rapid staccato beat of rain on the stone overhead gentled, slowed. Her own breath followed suit when his hand fell away but their bodies stayed rooted in place, chests touching.

"It's finished," he said raggedly. "She's buried."

She didn't dare glance up as she said, quietly, "Thanks."

"Didn't do it for you," he mumbled.

Why she wanted him to understand evaded her. But it was there, the need to make him see. Even though he was missing certain cogs, he was still capable of understanding the process, of seeing why things-people-worked the way they did.

"She and I didn't talk a lot, but Matt told me a while back that Vicky liked to make her own clothes. Had big plans to go to New York, apply to FIT. She had a sewing machine from their grandmother that she kept for like, twelve years, even after it broke. But they never had enough money to replace it." She reached up, absently picking at lint on his jacket, catching the convulsive bob of his Adam's apple that her action caused.

"One year, like the last year that their mom was around, actually, Matt invited me and Elena over for Christmas. I remembered what he'd said about Vicky's sewing machine. We did a Secret Santa, and Vicky was mine." She shook her head, sighing. "I didn't know, but there was a ten dollar limit on the gifts. Turned out, I was also Vicky's. Mine was a CD-Toni Braxton, because I was on a 90s kick a couple years ago. I don't know how she knew. And Vicky-"

Vicky had opened hers, finding the sewing machine that Bonnie had used a month's worth of advance allowance on. Bonnie hadn't thought of anything except doing her friend's sister a solid. It hadn't once crossed her mind that expensive gifts like that could be taken the wrong way.

She remembered seeing the warring pleasure and shock and then shame, finally replaced by outrage, crossing Vicky's eyes, while they darted between first the large gift in her lap, then at the CD on Bonnie's.

"You spoiled little rich Daddy's girls have no sense," she'd sneered, letting the box tumble to the floor, while she pointed accusingly at her brother. "Is she your guest, Mattie, or here to give us more handouts?"

All of it, a slap in the face to Bonnie. After that, she hadn't tried again with Vicky. They had no middle ground. Their backgrounds and personalities too far apart. Elena had tried to bridge the gap that formed, but Bonnie was stubborn and Vicky?

The girl liked building castles in the air, keeping her head above the clouds while she coasted by. Making bad choice after bad choice, running with all the crowds that kept her cocooned in a toxic state of highs and really, really mind-numbing lows.

And now she was dead. What was left inside of Bonnie was a permeating sense of regret, mostly. Not even guilt. Just sadness.

"She didn't keep the sewing machine. And I get it now. Back then, I was a little stupid." Bonnie let out a shaky smile. "I just kinda wanted to give her something I think she would've appreciated, you know? Except...maybe if you see the kinda broke-down coffin I made, you wouldn't say so."

He said nothing for a few moments. She kept her gaze averted, suddenly feeling dumb, the sense of it growing and spurring her to seek distance between them.

Overhead it was quiet, the air still.

"Rain stopped," she mumbled, moving to the exit. "Caroline's out there, probably ready to drown me for keeping her stuck playing diversion."

She was halfway out the mausoleum, taking in the after-rain crispness in the air, so much lighter outdoors compared to how thick it was where she'd left.

"Bon."

Stilling, she glanced over her shoulder, watching him approach.

"I'm not gonna say she sounded like a bitch," he drawled, "although I probably wouldn't be wrong, right?"

Before she could muster a reply to that, he brushed a deft finger against her sweater, just at the collar of her uniform. Still stained with crimson.

"Maybe it wasn't your brightest idea," he murmured. "But I would've kept it. Your gift."

A smile broke out on her face, wide and open and too many kinds of pleased for her to filter through right now. But it felt like her face was splitting in half, and she couldn't do anything to stop it.

She finally chanced a direct gaze at him then. And found him looking much the same. From there, it was easy to keep smiling like a fool, and hard-super, ridiculously, hard, practically a violent fight with herself, trying to tear her eyes away. Days old stubble lined his jaw now, his hair abruptly longer than it was. Where was the clean shaven college boy sociopath? He'd faded away, replaced by someone else who seemed older and less of a dick. She wasn't sure she liked the sudden changes, but then-couldn't stop tracking them. What was wrong with her?

"Bonnie Sheila Bennett!" came the familiar high-pitched voice, whip sharp in the air and cutting across the fog in her mind. "What're you _doing_? How dare you keep me waiting? You know-oh, whoa-hey, hello...hel _looo_?"

Kai slid his gaze away, slow, giving the appearance that he was dragging his eyes through mud. Bonnie did likewise.

Both of them stared as if in a stupor at the blonde standing before them, hands on her hips and thin, fine brows raised expectantly.

"Oh, I see. Leave it to you to add a third party to our little outfit without telling me. Who the hell is he, Bonnie?"

* * *

 **A/N:**

Hey, guys. Thanks so much for the reviews...all of a sudden today my inbox got flooded with them and that is much appreciated especially with the ROUGH ass couple weeks. Mostly thanks to work. It's killer. I don't know, with the way it's been going I'm afraid the updates will stay about the same. Sorry. But crossing fingers that it settles down or like I win the lottery? Leaning towards the latter. :)

Charade update...I don't even know, guys. Special shout out to leianaberrie for being an awesome beta. I'm reworking it now, and hoping it's out before Halloween.

Next few months is going to be bumpy b/c work UGH...so just hang in there, and remember that I'm Bonkai to the core so none of these stories are gonna be abandoned. Got it? Aight. :)


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

 _Bloodlines_

Dodging Caroline was never an easy feat on the best of days. Her friend even distracted had a nose to rival any dog's, and sniffing out trouble was part and parcel of her many talents, but _boy_ trouble specifically?

There, Caroline excelled.

Not that Malachai Parker-sociopathic killer sentenced by his own father and coven to a prison dimension and capable of sucking away magic from sources that included living, breathing witches-was anywhere close to being _just_ a boy. No matter how bright his shirts, or casual his cargos, or charming the smile, what Bonnie remembered best from the moment they met was the desolation in his eyes. As if in looking out at the world, he'd seen nothing to fill him, or give warmth.

At first, he'd only seemed capable of being entertained.

Now-well, it was a mess, really. Him. Her. The linking spell and his coven and her ancestors that lay between them like hot coals she'd never once felt like exploring, but knew soon that she would have to.

Bonnie's problem wasn't boy trouble-if only it were that easy. No, what she had on her hands was a magical shitstorm.

But leave it to Caroline to simplify. And bring along the one person that Bonnie couldn't help seeing as having crossed over into enemy territory.

"So," the blonde said perkily, tossing her hair over her shoulder while she settled back into her seat and wriggled her shoulders at Elena.

Who seemed about as thrilled as Bonnie to be sitting al fresco in front of the bakery that afternoon. First, the day was bright but chilly, the atmosphere between her and Elena even moreso, but that was mainly on Bonnie's part. Second, she had places to be, magic to practice, and a warlock to track down since Kai, once again, had gone AWOL and on radio silence despite the cell phone he now carried.

"Our little girl's growing up, Elena," Caroline teased. "Bonnie totally met a hottie in the cemetery the other day."

"No, I didn't," Bonnie said, exasperated. "He was telling the truth, Caroline."

Elena didn't meet either one of their gazes, but Caroline didn't seem to notice.

"He was visiting a relative's grave," Bonnie continued coolly. "We bumped into each other. Got caught in the rain and ducked for cover inside the mausoleum. Total awkward random stranger moment."

"Hmm. Right. That's why I walked in on you two about to get personal with each other's tonsils. You know, like perfectly random strangers do sometimes."

Elena glanced then at Bonnie, so quick she almost missed it. "What was his name?" Elena asked quietly.

"I didn't catch it," Bonnie replied, her tone laced with tension.

Caroline's head moved back and forth between the two, but then she shook her head as if they were jus distractions she needed to clear. "Liar," she sing-songed to Bonnie, earning an eyeball rolling of epic proportions, before something shiny sparkled from Caroline's neck, drawing her eye.

She reached out to touch the pendant Caroline wore on a thick chain. "Where'd you get this?" she asked, keeping her voice even.

"Elena," the blonde replied quickly. "Don't try to distract me. Yes, I know it's pretty and I have no idea why she gave it to except maybe to ease any guilt she might have for taking the good Salvatore for herself and leaving me with the crummy one."

Said, of course, with a smile to the brunette, without any of the usual sharp edges that usually accompanied Caroline's barbs to Elena.

Bonnie tore her gaze away from the necklace. She wasn't quite past the novice stage, but it didn't take years to notice that the stone radiated magic. Kai had loaded her with reading assignments over the past few weeks, enough so she could tell, just by a glance, that the necklace served as protection. If she had to guess, probably against vampire compulsion.

When she turned her attention to Elena, her friend was staring back evenly, for once the hesitancy that she'd worn since they all got together falling away.

"I'm gonna order hot chocolate," Bonnie muttered, but just then the waitress appeared suddenly, a small cup in hand that she offered to Elena, who waved it Bonnie's way instead, a question in her face.

"Already got you one," her friend said, in that soft, low, understanding tone that Bonnie realized just then she'd missed so much in the past few weeks.

They each stared, Bonnie taking in the dark half circles beneath her friend's eyes and the shattered expression resting just below the surface of Elena's worried gaze. Nobody spoke for a beat, but the moment wasn't lost on Caroline, who finally bought a clue.

"Really?!" the blonde demanded. "You guys have a fight with each other for once-instead of with me-and I don't even get told? Ugh."

"Nothing to tell," Elena said, tucking hair behind her ears and ducking her head in the patented move that screamed the total opposite of what she'd just said. Bonnie could've smacked her upside the head. That would only invite Caroline to dig deeper.

"Oh, wow," the blonde said, her eyes turning squinty in hard thought while Bonnie squarely met the laser vision being thrown her way. "This is serious."

"Care, stop." Bonnie pasted on what she hoped was a neutral face. "We're not fighting."

"Yeah, I'm just...tired, I guess..." Elena trailed off with a lame shrug.

"Well, maybe not surrounding yourself with pesky nocturnal creatures will help you sleep better at night," Bonnie couldn't help saying, emphasizing it with a perky smile.

Loaded with bite, the words sailed and hit their mark directly in the bullseye, Elena's head whipping up, her mouth dropping just slightly open before the brunette's gaze narrowed. "You don't look like you've had much sleep either," Elena replied, her own voice edgy. "So who've you been hanging with, Bonnie? I know it hasn't been me."

Damn. Leave it to Elena to dish it right back. At that moment, Bonnie couldn't help feeling a surge of affection towards her friend, a feeling that she fought to tame since the girl was still dating the brother of a murderous vampire that had almost killed her.

"Duh," Caroline said, looking between them once more. "Mystery graveyard guy. Pay attention, Elena."

"Stop," Bonnie said, groaning. "When would I have the time? Between my AP classes, cheerleading practice with a certain blonde pom pom Nazi, and Grams on my case about-" she stopped, lowering her voice, looking around warily, "my magic...I doubt I'll see the business end of any guy's tonsils until I graduate high school."

"Now that's sad. And not the Bonnie I know. The one that never backed down from a challenge." Caroline leaned a hand on her chin, staring in thought. "I know she's still in there somewhere. Otherwise, Vicky Donovan would've never gotten her proper burial."

Elena froze at that, shock in her features.

"Care-" Bonnie paused, sighing and shaking her head. There went the blonde's promise to keep that between them. She should've expected as much.

"I'm done hiding things from each other," Caroline said matter-of-factly. "Elena needed to know. She dated Matt, for crying out loud!"

"Elena-" Bonnie said, seething. "Knew exactly what happened to Vicky. And all those other people who've gone missing these last couple months." She turned a disgusted look at the brunette. "Go ahead, Elena. Fill her in."

Her chair dropped to the floor when she pushed it back to storm off angrily, but before she could move Elena was up in a flash, blocking her way. The panic in her gaze halted Bonnie, kept the temper rising beneath her skin in check. Something else was wrong, of course.

"I'm sorry, Bonnie," Elena said brokenly. "I didn't know until it was too late. Vicky-" and there she shook her head violently. "I had no idea what happened to her until after she was turned."

Bonnie kept her gaze hard. "Damon. Right?"

Elena nodded. "Stefan tried to help, but she couldn't control herself. She almost killed Jeremy and me-"

"Whoa whoa whoa." Caroline stood also, joining them with her brows raised sky-high, as she looked at Elena. "You've seriously been keeping all this to yourself? _What_ is wrong with you?"

"I'm sorry! Everything happened so fast, and I wasn't-I just..." Elena covered her eyes with her hands. "I haven't been thinking straight." She dropped her hands, looking to her friends with resolve in her face. "But I want to help. Things are getting worse."

"No kidding," Bonnie said, her own shoulders drooping then, imagining how it all could've gone so wrong. She watched Elena make an effort to calm herself, caught the other patrons watching them with interest, and stared in consternation at the sky. This wasn't what she'd had planned at all for her afternoon.

All because Caroline couldn't keep her mouth shut. But maybe it wasn't such a bad thing.

"C'mon," Caroline said. "Bonnie's dad is out of town again. We can go finish this conversation from the comfort of her bedroom, all of us in our jammies nursing a homemade cup of hot chocolate."

For the first time since meeting up, the heaviness in Elena's face cleared a little. "Up for it, Bonnie?"

"Of course she is!" Caroline was a whirlwind of planning now, having snatched at one of her genius ideas, which Bonnie definitely wasn't up for, not with Kai's presence being the undisclosed factor. A slumber party with her friends, with him hovering sight unseen?

 _No, thanks._

"No sleepover. We had to fumigate," she added quickly, seeing both of her friends' expressions fall. "Bats in the attic. Toxic fumes for you guys."

"Well, why are you there?" demanded Caroline.

"They gave us two masks. I don't have extras."

The blonde mulled it over, but Elena didn't hesitate, just squared her shoulders. "Fine, we'll move it to my house."

Bonnie gave her a look. "Yours, that has an open invitation out to two people who are high on my hit list?"

"Bonnie, I told you-"

"No, no, shut up, both of you. No ruining this with more bickering." Caroline grabbed both their arms, leading them all back to the small parking lot at the corner of Main. "My mom's on the late shift tonight. Sleepover at my place. And not another word. Got it?"

They were halfway to their separate cars when Caroline froze abruptly, then turned to Bonnie with an arch look caught somewhere between flattered and offended. "Really? Pom pom Nazi?"

-oOoOo-

Red hair trailed off the bed, swaying against the covers while long fingers tipped with glossy black nails gripped his shoulders tightly. The girl beneath him moaned with his every move.

Meanwhile, while beneath his closed lids, he mentally willed away any memory of caramel skin and green eyes that had a tendency, lately, to turn that weird cross of careful but confused whenever they rested on him.

"Ugh," moaned the redhead. "Right there, yes! Faster!"

Kai obliged, not just her but his dick, which was slick from her earlier orgasm and now needed its own release.

But finding satiation was getting tougher. Not that he was aiming for sleeping with a different girl every night, but his 'nads had been on a figurative lockdown for almost sixteen years. It was only natural to get some variety in, these first couple weeks that he was finally able to air them out. Google had gone a long way to getting him acclimated with the times. A new wardrobe, overhaul his nineties lingo, and he'd been ready to jump right into the social scene.

Which wasn't all that different from the two decades ago. The difference maybe lay in how people didn't bother meeting anyone's eyes that much. All their tiny gadgets were more interesting, and really, who was he to throw stones?

Luckily, tall, dark, a ready wit, and a wicked smile-that was about as much as he needed for the most part when it came to attracting female notice. Keeping it only involved some well-played moments of vulnerability, a tiny hint of his dark past, and of course, the clear lack of interest in pursuing anything serious.

Girls fell at his feet.

Had it been this easy, back in high school and college?

Back then, in the years leading up to his twenty second birthday, his growing resentment and the rage of knowing that he was being undermined by his own flesh and blood, by his own fucking parents depriving him of his birth right-that had consumed him. Naturally, he'd never cared all that much about collecting pussy in the same way as other morons his age. But just by not giving a shit, he'd carved a niche for himself in his youth. Built a reputation for being the weird kid, the one to avoid. Of course, a few girls took it to mean that they should flock to him.

It hit him, then, that it _hadn't_ been a struggle, finding a few that he'd been able to stomach, for a couple months at a time, who occasionally distracted him from his own single-minded pursuit of ruling an ancient, unwieldy coven. A couple familiar faces in his past drifted to mind, fuzzy features blending together as time blurred his memory. Some girls were sweet, but the ones he remembered best were those who played hard to get and roused his natural instinct to overcome any challenge.

No, he hadn't known all the smooth moves back then but somehow? All of them, putty in his hands eventually.

None of them worth looking up now. Why bother, anyway? Not when the tall, curvy redhead with the perky pink nipples was writhing so wildly as he pumped away between her long, creamy legs.

He grabbed a hold of them, leaning up and pulling almost all the way out, earning a protest from her, before he distractedly hushed her and then rammed himself deeply in.

A few more lunges, and then she was seizing in bed, thrashing with her mouth opened and her moans filling the air in between her crying out his name. She throbbed around his erection, and he kept pumping faster, doing wonders for her aftershocks, he could tell.

But nothing whatsoever for him.

"Dammit," he finally muttered, pulling out, wiping the sweat from his brow. He abandoned the bed, walking to the bathroom.

"Where ya going?"

"Nature calls," he said, tossing out an easy excuse that didn't at all hide his unresolved tension.

"C'mon back," she purred. "You can put it in my-"

He shut the door on her unfinished offer, rushing into the shower. The water ran hot, a harsh burn on his back. When he closed his eyes, he saw hints of dusky cleavage beneath a tank, a worn fuzzy robe and dark hair, long and wavy and mussed. And heard a low voice in his ear...

 _"It's the right thing to do."_

He drew in a ragged breath, green eyes floating to mind amidst a sweetheart face tilted up with resolve, full pink bow mouth turned down at the corners, driving him to wonder what she'd do if he ever decided to indulge his whim to reach out and swing them back up into a smile with his fingers. He was willing to kill, just to touch her mouth. Or feel it on him.

 _"Don't get in my way."_

Except now his treacherous brain wasn't remembering it the way she'd said it. Then, it'd been innocuous, meaning nothing almost. Now, he imagined letting slender, petite hands graze his chest, trail down his abdomen, light fingers teasing him while they roamed south. All the while her eyes stayed on his.

 _Kai..._

"Shit," he breathed, resting his forehead against the wall even as a fist came up to punch the tile.

Sage and something smoky mixed with vanilla and lemon filled his nose then, each of them associated with her, he knew. He'd been around her enough to know she liked to change up her scent, but that sage and slightly scorched aroma was now ever present, thanks to long hours of practice mixing herbs and burning candles in the name of magic.

His hand of its own volition drifted to his penis, straining madly.

Under his lids, he saw her hand rest on his base, fingers grazing up in the lightest, worst way, exerting just the smallest pressure-

He fumbled her name out on a groan, physical release washing over him as he spilled himself all over the tiled floor. And then stared with dismay for a few seconds as his seed swirled around the drain. His skin flushed, he turned the water to cool, cleaning himself like his life depended on it, like if he washed himself off enough thoughts of her could be scrubbed away, too.

It wasn't even the years between them that bugged him much. Bonnie wasn't the innocent type; that he could tell right away. Hot, a sophomore on the cheerleading squad, served as lifeguard for years. And from what he'd seen in the early months of playing mirror and mental tag-along, not the kind of person who liked to shut herself away from friends and partying. No way she'd gone through her high school career that well-rounded without also getting a taste of at least third base, was his best guess.

She could stand to be a few years older, sure, but something else bothered him more. Somewhere buzzed his spidey sense anytime she was too near and he turned hyper-aware of her; arousal, hell yes, but also-alarm.

Fear.

Letting her get any closer was dangerous. Not just for him.

And fuck if he'd _ever_ in his whole life had a thought to give a shit about anyone else's welfare. Aside from one or two of his siblings, back when they were still in elementary school and relatively unscathed by their coven upbringing. Back before Kai figured out what all of his parents' funny looks his way meant, those times the teachers called them in for a conference about him giving yet another kid a split lip and bloody nose. Over a cookie or a book or a game of dodgeball.

The point was, it'd been years, and therefore the instincts in him roused by Bonnie lately were unfamiliar, a dish foreign to his palette, so to speak. Now it was to the point where he grew frequently confused himself. The close proximity didn't help, which was why he'd taken to staying out those days she was in. He didn't like it much. She still needed practice, was prone to seeking out his company and had even gotten him a cell phone to that end.

He liked even less the fact that he'd yet to control his attraction to her.

But he'd get there.

Shortly after that, he was dressed and out the door, sauntering away from the redhead's dorm. She was tolerable, that one. Not chatty but also not too concerned about divulging information that wasn't exactly general knowledge to the public, most importantly. Being assistant to the Student Services coordinator, she knew better, but maybe he'd caught her at the right time or he was just particularly skilled at bringing down walls of all kinds.

Or maybe he'd been too long in the company of a paranoid little witchling with a knack for giving him headaches and hard-ons.

But whatever. The redhead knew her way around the campus, and all it had taken to draw out nuggets of info was a not-so-chance encounter at the bookstore, a cup of coffee and some lingering touches, then that quick detour into her dorm.

Magic would've given him a quicker way to get it done, but he'd had an itch to scratch when he left the house this morning.

And apparently, the pool of candidates capable of easing that itch was starting to get narrower and narrower. He'd been better off just using magic, not wasting any time.

But at least now, he had a badge. He strolled up to the administrative building, hovering the badge over the scanner beside the door. It swung open, allowing him entrance, and he stepped through on light feet, jaunty and smiling, twirling the badge as he made his way through several empty offices, whistling past them towards the area that housed the terminals.

"Thanks..." he said to himself, peeking quickly at the badge in his hands. "...Yasmine."

In no time, he was in front of a computer, digging his way through the alumni records until a name popped up that he would've missed completely since the last name wasn't familiar to him at all.

But the first name?

Well, **Josette** wasn't exactly on the list of top 100 baby girl names of any decade.

Kai leaned back, sighing deeply, a satisfied smile growing on his face.

Baby steps.

-oOoOo-

They were seated in a semi-circle on Elena's bed, concentrating on the blonde fiddling with the ends of the sheets with her head bowed and an embarrassed look on her face while she ended her story with a half-shrug and rubbed absently at the space between her brows.

As if, with a little more pressure, she could somehow erase all memory of what had happened to her during her time with Damon.

"Any chance you could do some mojo to make me forget having ever met the guy?" Caroline finally asked, throwing Bonnie a sheepish smile.

Bonnie grit her teeth, holding back her rage.

"Caroline," Elena said haltingly. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't worry about it." Caroline shrugged. "Lesson learned, right? No more bad boys for me."

Bonnie stood, because how badly she wanted to pry Damon's member off with her bare hands and shove it in his mouth then tear his head off, had her shaking. Was it possible she was channeling Kai here? Maybe. And it would've felt so damn good to actually indulge in his violent ways just then.

"Where are you going?"

She hadn't even realized she'd taken any steps. Dark brown eyes peered carefully back at her when she turned towards her friends. Bonnie shook her head, but when she looked away from Elena it was only to find a pair of sharp blue ones narrowing as they locked in on her.

"I might just go," she said slowly. "Commit my first murder."

"Don't even, Bonnie."

"Yeah, good luck with taking down a century-old vampire with twenty times your strength."

"Back off, both of you." The puff of breath she took was slow, more to try to make sense of the ideas running through her head just then. "My neck would appreciate a little more breathing room."

Her eyes went around the room, random at first, until they landed once more on her friends. More specifically, their necks, and the fine chains peeking out at her from between the collar of their pajamas.

"Damon needs to stay away from you two," she muttered, almost to herself.

"What're you planning?" Elena asked guardedly.

"Something you won't like," Bonnie replied with more than a touch of hostility. "Since you're so chummy with him."

"I can't let you do this, Bonnie!" Elena said, throwing the covers off-

-but all it took was Bonnie's palm held up. A quick whisper.

Both her friends froze in place on the bed, pony-tailed heads stock still, their faces scrubbed clean, the make up from before now replaced with the weight of worry. Bonnie stood facing them, posed almost as if prepared for flight, her fuzzy old robe sloppily tied around her sleep short and tank. As the spell wore on and magic seared the room, she found her slouchy socks falling further around her ankles as she stepped away from her friends and concentrated on the effort of casting.

 _"Impona re maleum, tu eri vela tos."_

The pendants around both Elena and Caroline's necks glowed brightly, Bonnie's nerves tingling into new awareness, magic at their ends blistering into life. The world around her grew dim, and a new one took its place, turning the air around her thick and warm.

Bonnie's frown deepened.

 _"Impona re maleum, tu eri vela tos."_

Wind whipped her hair, the lights above her head flickering.

Caroline and Elena grabbed their throats, gasping in air in tandem, lungfuls of it as if an invisible force leeched it from their bodies. At the same moment, the spaces between Bonnie's ears filled with roaring, muting everything but the sound of magic permeating the spaces inside her brain and spreading to every pore of her. Her body sang, and burned, and throbbed-

-she blinked, seeing Kai flashing before her eyes, his eyes closed and his face contorted as if in pain, except she felt it, and that wasn't right-

-his voice was low, deep, rumbling inside her mind and spurring her into shudders...

 _God, Bonnie..._

Low in her abdomen pooled an urge, not one she had much experience with but definitely one she knew, and it robbed her of breath now, the force of it nothing she'd felt before. It swept up, radiated to her skin, kindling an urge, desperate and violent, to feel his hands on her.

And then...release.

Her eyes shot open, along with her mouth, his name stuck on her throat. She bit it back, stifling it in place with a low, garbled moan.

Caroline and Elena stared in mute shock at her.

Bonnie gasped, stumbling back, sure that her ears, despite the camouflage of her darker skin tones, were burning bright and red and hot.

What the _hell_ was that?

"Are you okay?" Elena asked her.

"What did you do?" Caroline demanded.

"Bad burritos," Bonnie explained. "Anytime Damon gets near either of you, he's gonna feel sick."

"And what about you?" Elena pointed out. "He's already gone after you over Emily's talisman. Can you spell something for yourself?"

"No," she said. "I want him to find me."

"I can't believe you," Caroline said in a high, angry voice. "After I tell you that Damon used me as a personal chew toy, your great idea is to take my spot? You can't be that desperate for a guy's attention. I mean, I know it's been awhile since Scott-"

Bonnie promptly tuned her out, shaking off the outrageous sense of embarrassment that still flooded her anytime she thought back to the last few minutes of her spell. No time now to delve into what had seeped into it, and she realized that later wouldn't work, either. She couldn't exactly run to Kai, her so-called mentor, to explain what had come over her, not when thoughts of him were the source of the problem.

"What Damon did to you," Bonnie said finally, "is part of why I'm doing this."

Her spell on them broken now, Elena was able to jump out of bed, stalking the floor of her room in agitation.

Caroline threw the covers off and rushed over to Bonnie, all five feet seven inches of indignant overwrought blonde as she towered over her. "Since we were kids, I always gave you credit for being the brains of our group, but now I think that's being too generous."

"And you were always the bitch," Bonnie returned, but her attempt half-hearted because she was still unsettled by the interruption to her spell.

"Quit it, you two," Elena admonished. "Anyway, there has to be another way. I could be the one to distract him-"

"Right," Bonnie said, scoffing up in skepticism. "So you could go Stockholm Syndrome on the guy?"

"Bonnie," Elena shook her head, her eyes serious. "I'm not excusing anything he's done. He tried to kill you, and what happened to Caroline-" she stopped, her face disgusted. "I'm all in for getting him out of this town. But not-"

"What? Killing him? He's a homicidal maniac stalker, Elena. Obsessed with releasing his girlfriend who probably taught him all those winning qualities. Along with a bunch of other vampires that have missed, oh, a few thousand meals."

Elena's hands covered her face, the gesture desperate. "I need to warn Stefan."

"Dumb. Really dumb idea." Dead calm suffused Bonnie, right along with an itch to slap Elena's face until her addled thoughts turned reasonable. "If you tell him, he'll ruin everything."

"I love him, Bonnie. I don't want him hurt in the crossfire. He tried to save you."

No, that was Kai, Bonnie wanted to protest. "If you can't stay away from Stefan, then distract him. That's all." She shrugged. "His ex was your identical twin. Use that."

The way Elena shut down just then would've fazed Bonnie, if it'd been a few months ago. _Way to be supportive_ , Bonnie told herself, but somehow didn't feel too shoddy about picking at her friend's obvious insecurity.

At the start of their impromptu slumber party, Elena had told all. Stefan's plan to leave town and her admission of love and all the theatrics that came with it. Stefan returned the feeling, but it didn't stop him from carrying around an old photo of his former girlfriend, who could've passed for Elena's double, if Elena had a penchant for Civil War era fashion. In true Elena Gilbert style, once she'd found the picture she'd taken off and run away from the problem, hoping it would resolve itself. Maybe by way of a fairy godmother, Bonnie couldn't help thinking a little cynically.

All of which ended, basically, with one more vampire still prowling the streets of their hometown. Did it make her a bad friend for wishing that Elena had cut short the dramatics and just embarked on a long-distance relationship with the guy? Or better yet, found someone else as rebound? Preferably a guy with a pulse?

"Are you hearing yourself, Bonnie?" Caroline asked. "Like, who are you? This is insane. You need help. You can't take down Damon Salvatore on your own."

"Oh, no?"

"No," Elena agreed.

Caroline crossed her arms. "You need numbers."

Haze shrouded Bonnie's thoughts as she stared at her friends, focusing on her spell at work. Their necklaces no longer glowed, but the magic she'd poured into it called to her and somehow, in a bizarre way, reminded her of Kai.

"I need you guys safe. That's all." She turned a stone-faced gaze their way, trying for menacing, mimicking a look she'd seen a few times on Kai's face. "It'll be fine."

And then walked to her sleeping bag on the floor, slipping inside it trying to play the unconcerned super star witch that she felt, in reality, far removed from.

Then it hit her, belatedly, Caroline's comment about the last semi-serious boyfriend she'd had, and the question bubbled out before Bonnie could stop herself. "Hey, isn't Scott with Tiki now?"

"Nope," came the quick reply from Caroline's side of the floor. "He dumped her. Open season on his fine ass."

Bonnie rolled her eyes, then frowned, struggling to place said ass in her memory but at that moment she could barely recall Scott's face. And hadn't it just been last year she'd been doodling his name and hers on a notebook, complete with swirly hearts and flowers?

Felt like a lifetime ago.

-oOoOo-

Bonnie was avoiding him. It didn't register for a few days, but at a certain point when he was making dinner and then proceeding to eat it alone for the third time that week, he stared at the empty plate across from him and felt the light bulb switch on.

What exactly she was up to that had her evading his company was something he spent the rest of the night turning over. It wasn't only that he didn't trust her judgment-he didn't much trust anyone's. The nature of his existence both in and out of the prison world meant he'd had to spend a long time reflecting on people, figuring them out, and coming to the conclusion that a lot of poor souls just didn't have their shit together.

In other words, he operated best under the assumption that he was the only one who didn't suck.

Occasionally and in recent months, Bonnie drifted into that category. A realization that floored him, once he owned up to it. And which meant, her dodging his company worked out for him, since he wasn't up to seeing all that much of her himself.

Soft. He was getting soft, thanks to all these damn Bennetts.

Mornings he slept in, and while he knew coming in at all hours of the night several times a week probably gave her the impression he was regularly making it back in some drunken stupor, it was his best approach to keeping out of sight. Bonnie was rarely ever home after curfew even with her dad mostly gone from town. Her inner goody two shoes almost never let up, and Kai learned early on in the first few weeks of having met her, that he could time it to the hour when she'd get home, usually with book bags in tow and brimming now not just with school but also spell work.

But that day, as he lay in bed in the guest room clear on the other side of the hall from hers, stray thoughts flitted through his brain like annoying little fruit flies he couldn't swat away. There was finding his twin, for one. Convincing her to merge, some sixteen years delayed, but better late than never was a saying he liked to quote and it applied perfectly here. Not that he'd been all that worried before, that time when they truly were set to merge, but now it was decades later and he suspected his idiot sister had gone all these years without her magic. Call it twin intuition, gut instinct, whatever. He knew for sure he would win it this time around.

And after-well, he'd take his sweet time tracking down every one of the council members directly involved with trapping him in the prison world. Inflicting pain and death on them in new and creative ways wasn't something he wanted to rush.

He also hadn't decided yet, on how best to kill his father, was enjoying his current taste of freedom too much to fine-tune ideas just yet on how to accomplish the task. It would come to him, but maybe not now, especially since he was surrounded on all sides by vampire drama in an otherwise snooze fest town.

Somewhere downstairs, he heard the jangle of keys. In another minute, Bonnie would be out the door, headed for school. He hadn't seen her in days now.

He shifted beneath the covers, thinking.

Her footsteps in the kitchen reached his ears, then the sound of the fridge closing shut and once more, the keys jangling. She'd probably grabbed something quick and easy for breakfast, to eat on the road.

Who needed proper nutrition in an under supervised home anyway?

In a half minute, she'd be out the door.

Kai shot off the bed, long strides bringing him down the stairs in a flash.

He was reaching the last step when she rounded the corner, nearly colliding with him.

"Oof-oh!" The apple in her hand dropped. On reflex he caught it with deft fingers, his eyes never leaving hers while his other hand reached out, grabbing her wrist to keep her from tipping over from the force of trying to back away from him.

The move brought her body into close contact with his once more. His jaw tightened when he caught the way she winced and averted her eyes.

But he offered her a smile and a chirpy, "Morning, sunshine."

"Hey."

"Is for horses." He studied the apple, big and bold and red, then eyed her skeptically. "Pretty sure a lonely fruit for breakfast isn't enough to support your growing body."

His eyes on their own volition traveled quickly down her form; she didn't notice it, to his relief, but her cheeks seemed to flush, confusing him. Was that a sign of anger?

"Haven't seen you around," he said conversationally.

She shrugged. "Been busy."

"With?"

"Stuff."

"Like?"

The way he prodded got on her nerves, he knew, and usually by this point she'd have started ranting about him minding his business already. Yet she still looked away, coaxing from him a surge of inconvenient worry that he loathed feeling, but which was becoming a standard anytime he shared a conversation with her.

"Uh-oh. Clamming up. Not a good sign."

Her head snapped up, the angry flash of her eyes giving him warning, but then the fire there cooled as she let her gaze roam over his face.

"Where...?" she asked, confused. "I thought you were growing it."

His brows raised, he waited for her to continue.

"Your stubble." She waved a hand over his face. "You look like you again." Then her stare turned thoughtful. "I like this look better."

He inhaled sharply, pleasure blossoming low in his abdomen and shooting up to his chest.

"Why?" he asked.

There went that shrug. "Does it matter?"

"Sure," he said. "Seeing as I like to mix it up, you know? This one shows off my chiseled features while also exploiting my boyish charm, but sometimes I gotta go for the mature, intimidating grown up thing. Depends on what I'm doing that week."

Her eyes narrowed. "And what are you doing this week, Kai?"

"Oh, Bonnie," he said, chuckling and letting the tip of tongue rest along his top canine. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and if he didn't know any better, he could've sworn she looked guilty. Their eyes met, but only briefly because she suddenly backed away several feet, bumping into the corner table in the hall.

"I'm l-late," she stammered. "For school. That I can't miss. So yeah, I gotta go."

"Wait."

"I'm late."

"You already mentioned that." He walked towards her, taking in the deer-in-headlights expression on her face. What was she up to? "Wanted to show you something."

"Later? I gotta go 'cuz-"

"You're late, yeah. Got that. A couple seconds is all I'm asking." He held up the apple, taking a large bite and chewing with zest while he offered it up to her. "Wanna bite?"

It wasn't the way he'd originally planned to tell her, but he was in the moment here and truthfully didn't expect her to do anything other than give him one her arched brows. But her glance fell on his mouth again, and then on the apple, and maybe she was just hungry after all, because before he knew it, her hand was wrapped around his, on the apple and her lips were grazing his fingers while she took a chunk out of it.

Kai almost dropped the damn thing.

She chewed slowly, releasing her hold on it, a little juice at the corner of her mouth while she gazed at him. He couldn't look away, stepped nearer from a subconscious need to lick it off her skin, almost choking on a breath when she cleaned it up herself with a dart of her pink tongue.

He dropped the apple, the fruit bouncing to the floor and rolling to a stop between them. They both looked down at it, then at each other. In her eyes, what he saw there struck him dumb.

"Bonnie," he said, his tone strangled.

His feet moved on their own, closing the distance between them.

"You were going to show me something?" she asked, her voice sounding far too airy and casual then, and he realized she was going to play this off. She was being smart. He could be the same-hell, he could outsmart her. He didn't want to; there'd been a time not that long ago where he would never have dreamt of foregoing his own pleasure.

But now, after months of sharing mirrors, nightmares, a prison world...now they were both seized by a need to share their bodies.

"It's the link, isn't it?" she asked, reading his thoughts plainly on his face. "Why we want each other so bad right now?"

He tried to give another smile, but felt the strain of it on his cheeks.

"Your relatives are pervy."

She laughed, her eyes lit with genuine amusement by his words. It broke the tension. His grin grew comfortable. He was even capable of laughing himself, watching her cover her cheeks as she leaned against the wall.

"We have the weirdest friendship," she finally said, her head shaking as she watched him come closer, this time without any awkwardness.

He stilled, her words settling over him, warmth spreading around his neck and something else gripping his ribs, keeping him from speaking because he'd never heard that, not in reference to him. Had he ever had a friend? He'd never needed that before, or wanted one. What good were they? People were either exploitative or exploited, had always been his thought.

Staring at Bonnie, the idea suddenly didn't seem to hold any weight.

"I wouldn't know," he said slowly.

She frowned.

"You're the first real friend I've had."

An admission that cost him a lot to say, but not one that he regretted sharing. Especially not with the way her face softened and understanding dawned in her eyes, turning them warm and mossy, much like the forest he used to like exploring back in his hometown. After several moments of exchanging a companionable, silent smile, he cleared his throat, and nodded towards the apple.

She followed his gaze, then turned wide-eyed when his hand flicked up, and the apple went careening back into his palm. In another second, the two bite-sized dents they'd made in it disappeared, giving way to restored wholeness while he chanted, sweeping his fingers over it to give it a final brilliant shine.

"Looks like a cartoon drawing," she said, before her glance landed on the black leather band on his wrist, the amber stones there pulsing softly. "So your little accessory there-"

"-is the gift that keeps on giving," he finished.

"But how?"

He fingered the band. "I'm a siphoner, Bonnie," he said. "The mighty Emily Bennett goofed by giving me an endless source of magic that I can draw from." His grin turned cocky, as he offered the perfect fruit out to her in an exaggerated bow. "An apple for milady?"

"Thanks." She plucked it from his grasp, eyes rolling to the ceiling. "You dork."

-oOoOo-

Her plan, despite all of her friends' arguments, went into motion a few days later.

Or would have-

If Elena hadn't taken off her damn necklace.

She sat on a bench on the school lawn, envisioning new scenarios of how best to broach her ideas to Kai, before scrapping any plans of mentioning it at all. After that encounter by the stairs the other day, things were running so smoothly between them-about the only part of her life that wasn't giving her a headache. He hadn't even mentioned his coven except in passing lately, like they had dropped off the top of his to-do list.

The thought of getting into another argument with him over the stupid vampire situation wasn't one she relished. But her instincts told her it was better to let him know than have him find out on his own. A knack of his, one that never failed to annoy her whenever he deigned to stick his nose in her business.

A tall shadow abruptly blocked her sunlight that until that moment had been warming her. Her thoughts still scattered, she glanced up and caught Stefan's brooding gaze. The spike of irritation swelled up, not irrationally in her opinion, and so virulent it almost formed into a ball of angry magic she fought not to hurl at the vampire.

"Some of us actually like the sun," she remarked in icy tones, by way of greeting. "You know, the ones who don't get fried by it."

He held up the hand sporting what she now knew was a daylight ring.

"That's cheating," she mumbled.

He sat carefully beside her on the bench. "More of a fan of moonlight myself."

"Stop me," she said flatly. "I'm swooning."

He sighed. "Bonnie, I'm sorr-"

"Save it. Don't want your apology. Just want you and _especially_ your brother-gone."

"Well, he is."

"Is it safe to hope for an extended absence?"

"Doubtful. Especially when Elena's missing also." Stefan's expression turned more concerned. "I haven't seen either of them since last night."

But to his total ignorance, Bonnie was already well aware. Elena had arrived on her door step frazzled and babbling about a random vampire who'd caused her car to flip over on the road. Thankfully, she hadn't been hurt, Damon of all people had arrived just in the nick of time, and despite his best efforts to talk Elena into going on a road trip, her friend had had the sense to send him away. The vampire hadn't pushed it. And had even, according to Elena, seemed relieved when she turned him down.

Which meant Bonnie's spell was working.

"No clue who the other vampire was?" Bonnie had asked her friend, as they sat in her father's living room. She had been home alone, without even Kai around as witness.

"No," Elena said, her eyes gleaming. "But I'll find out."

"How?"

"You do your thing, Bonnie. I'll do mine."

"Wait, Elena-"

But her friend had run off, and she hadn't had the urge anymore to try to stop her with magic. She should have, and now regretted leaving it alone. Maybe her friend had sent Damon away initially, but clearly had changed her mind, and what didn't bode well about the situation was that Elena obviously meant to use one unstable vampire to sniff out another. It didn't strike Bonnie as any kind of brilliant approach.

"Please help me find her," Stefan said to Bonnie now, earnest face showing signs of patient understanding as if he was expecting her to turn him away despite how hard he was begging. He offered up the necklace that only a few nights ago she'd spelled to protect her friend.

 _Good job, Elena._

"No," she said. "She might not want to be found."

Bonnie walked away from him without a backwards glance, knowing he was still wearing that same expression and glad she'd done nothing to ease it. He didn't need to know that she'd done a locator spell the night before and found Elena was still within state boundaries. She'd called her cell, and of course gotten no answer, then tracked Caroline down to see if she had any idea just when Elena planned on cutting her road trip short. But the blonde was also making herself scarce, which told Bonnie that Caroline knew more than she did. The one time Bonnie had seen her that day, it'd been with Matt in tow. Both of them startled and wearing matching expressions of guilt as she approached them.

So now, Matt was in on it also.

The thought made her teeth grind. Bad idea, involving him further into the world that had killed his sister.

Bonnie squared her shoulders. Yet another vampire arriving in town didn't bode well for anyone. Her history teacher being some kind of vigilante vampire killer might swing the tide in their favor for a while, but ever since Kai's warning about the guy, Bonnie had been keeping an eye on Alaric Saltzman. He didn't strike her as any more superhuman than a regular physical trainer might have been. Maybe even less.

So. It fell to her.

Later that evening, she threw her spell books into her car and drove to a spot in the woods she was growing all too familiar with.

Foggy twilight dappled through thick, weeping branches, casting the old tomb in a soft glow that belied the danger lurking just beneath its surface. As she approached the clearing, words repeated in a verse through her mind, from the night of Emily's possession.

 _"Can't release them, I must protect the town..."_

Something rotten touched her then, decaying essence of the supernatural trapped under the ground reaching her. She stood in the center of a rock formation, looking guardedly around and expecting bats to swarm her, or misty figures to form from the fog and start attacking.

"Who's there?" she called out.

A second later, the earth rumbled under her feet, cracking open to swallow her up.

-oOoOo-

His stride was slow and meandering as he approached the clearing, and why not? Aside from the vampires stuck in the tomb, the only one around was Bonnie. And he was in no rush to let her know that once again, he'd tailed her.

Mainly because she'd probably try to kick his ass, and while he enjoyed the thought of trading barbs and spells with her for fun, he didn't want to waste time because second, the priority was finding out what the witchling was up to. So he watched her stand in the middle of that abandoned field, her petite form touched by dim, hazy light, giving her the appearance of a ghost.

"Who's there?" she called, then a moment later disappeared from sight.

He froze, confused momentarily until his eyes took in the hole where she'd stood.

 _Shit._

His steps picked up pace, turned into a full run but he was at the far edge of the woods and seconds had already passed. She wasn't making a sound, either.

Then out of the corner of his eyes, he caught a shape blurring across the other side of the clearing, dropping neatly into the same hole that had engulfed Bonnie. Seconds later, her screams tore the air.

Blood running cold, Kai drove forward at breakneck speed, mentally cloaking himself because whatever had joined Bonnie had moved far too quickly to be human. He guessed one of the Salvatores had spied on her.

The ground was damp, made him slip, but he kept on. Soon he stood over the hole, peering into the pit below. Two figures stood near each other. Their voices drifted to his ears.

One of the brothers, all right. Only, the wrong one. The good one.

"The ground gave way," Bonnie was saying, her tone laced with barely concealed agitation. "I fell."

"It's okay," Stefan said. "Come on, let's get you home."

She shrugged off the vampire's hands from her arms. "I can get home on my own."

"Bonnie," Kai heard the long-suffering sigh that remained repressed while Stefan Salvatore moved nearer to the witch. "My way out is quicker."

"How?" she asked, suspicion in her tone making Kai feel inordinately proud of her.

"Just close your eyes."

She wasn't going to fall for that, Kai knew. Clearly, the vampire was too used to his girlfriend and other women going weak-kneed for that James Dean jacket and hair. Bonnie knew better-

Except she was quiet, as she drifted nearer to Stefan and shied away from the pentagramed rock at her back.

"Trust me," said the low, soothing voice, spurring Kai's veins to run icy while thoughts of crushing the vampire's windpipe occupied him.

Bonnie turned her back, stepping into the circle of Stefan's arms.

What the fuck was she thinking?

Still cloaked, Kai felt the whoosh of air right as the vampire jumped and landed expertly on the ground by the pit. His arms loosened and Bonnie stepped carefully out, eyes still closed.

"You can open your eyes now."

"Whoa," she breathed, turning to face him.

"Didn't want to scare you."

"How did you know where I was?"

"I stopped at your grandmother's first. Said she'd been trying to call you without any luck."

"Oh, great," Bonnie suddenly said, groaning. "She's back from her trip. I forgot."

"So I backtracked, followed my nose from when I last saw you." He stared down in silence at the pit. "Not safe for you to be out here by yourself."

"I heard them down there, behind the door." Kai saw the gleam of unabashed curiosity mixed with that brand of concern that Bonnie sometimes wore like a favorite pair of shoes. "Are they in pain?"

"In the beginning, yes, but not anymore. They've starved to the point of desiccation."

"But if they have blood, they'll-"

"It's not gonna happen, Bonnie. They can't get out. Emily saw to that when she had you destroy the crystal."

Kai's fingers went to his band, at the same time Bonnie rubbed at her ring. He had a notion she'd failed to explore the bounds of magic the ring afforded her. His own nose for curiosity had led him to try experimenting with his band, the result of which was he was growing adept at mixing up his skills both with and without it.

"You're safe," Stefan said reassuringly, his hand once more coming up to rest on Bonnie's shoulder.

Kais temper snapped at the sight. In one fluid move, he dispelled the magic that cloaked him and neared the pair. Bonnie's eyes went wide as she took him in, but just before Stefan could turn around to face him, the vampire's spine and neck cracked painfully, the sound sharp and ringing in the air.

Stefan slid bonelessly to the ground at Bonnie's feet.

"But you, guy, are not," Kai said.

"Why'd you do that for?" Bonnie demanded.

He threw her a 'are you kidding' face.

"He just helped me out," she said.

"About that," Kai said easily, peering casually down into the hole. "Could've helped yourself, Bon. Disappointed you didn't even try. Whatever happened to girl power?"

"Right here," she said, smacking him hard in the chest, sending him stumbling back and laughing while she dropped to her knees, patting gingerly at the vampire lying prone on the ground. "Jerk. Did you stop to think, when he wakes up, he's gonna have questions?"

"Let him. Nobody's gonna make you answer them."

She sighed deeply, rubbing her eyes, looking slight and vulnerable just then. He had an itch to push her back, get into a real witchy woo fight with her.

"Why did you that?" she asked again, her voice tired.

He lifted one shoulder carelessly. "Better question, what were you doing here?"

She spun on her heel and walked away, but her attempt to shake him only fueled the fire. Angry silence from her end he was familiar with, only now it seemed misplaced. Was she honestly mad that he'd hurt one of the vampires they agreed to rid themselves and her town of? It was mind boggling, how quickly a little courtesy from a pouty-faced vampire could sway her.

His car was closer than hers, but he bypassed it to follow her to the Prius, sliding inside her passenger side.

"Get out," she seethed.

"Why are you so mad?"

"Why are you so murdery?"

"He's a vampire."

"He's not Damon, okay? Stefan-he didn't deserve that."

"Oh, and you're the expert? I forget-is he your friend's man, or yours?"

She gaped at him, her eyes slowly narrowing. The rest of the ride home was tense, quiet, and when they arrived at her house, she peeled into the driveway, slamming the breaks roughly. He all but kissed the dash violently, not having bothered with a seat belt.

"What idiot gave you a license?" he muttered.

"You don't get to do this, Kai," she said softly. "We're friends, okay? No more acting like a jealous boyfriend."

His head snapped to hers, his gaze arrested on her face.

"Bad enough I get flashbacks of..." trailing off, her cheeks turned a dusky rose. "Stuff that hasn't happened and will never happen. But this connection's playing with our heads. We need to keep it in check. You do, at least."

"Me?" he scoffed. "How do I know you're not the one with the hots for me and planting ideas in my head? I mean, hello. Have you met me?"

Bravado on his end, of course, but she didn't need to know that.

"Did you even hear what Stefan said about the vampires?" she asked impatiently. "They're desiccated. That means they're helpless."

Suddenly, he wished they were still arguing about their illicit mystical attraction, although if he was being honest with himself, and with her, it was probably less about mystical and more about plain old chemistry. And complementary personalities. Maybe one day he'd offer her a clue. But not today.

"Don't," he said warningly. "I know that look. We don't have time for it."

"Time for what?" she asked, all innocence.

"Your bad ideas. Anyway, I have plans."

"Do I even wanna know?" she mumbled.

He leaned towards her, past the middle console between them, his grin cheeky as she stared back in suspicion. "You've got a break coming up. Feel like a trip out of town?"

* * *

* _Impona re maleum, tu eri vela tos. - Repel evil, protect its wearer._

 **A/N:** To my anonymous reviewer, here you go, Sunday update. Your harassing did indeed work. ;) Also, I'm playing it a little loose with the episode timelines, but it more or less follows season 1 arc. Next up is probably a Kaleidoscope chap. Need to write to get rid of the bad taste that Bonnie/Enzo storyline's leaving in my mouth. I finally caved and watched Bonnie scenes on my DVR. It had potential, but of course the writers decide to make it one-sided and have Bonnie look a touch desperate. I'm about ready to change her name and Kai's and just appropriate their characters into an original story lol * sighs *


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

 _ **Trippin'**_

The dusty country road before them stretched out long and empty. Full of promise, Kai had said with glee, when they first pulled into the gas station.

Bonnie sat slumped in the front seat scowling at the trees lining both sides of the road. They'd passed three hours worth of similar scenery, and now they were at the very edge of where Kai could wander and still stay tethered to her, according to his not so pleasant experience from weeks ago, when he'd stumbled into the limits on his own.

If only he would hurry up with his damn chips and sodas and who knew how many other countless snack fetches.

"Full of promise, my ass," Bonnie muttered to herself.

Presently, he wandered back out of the gas station. She watched him draw out bag after bag of junk food and packages of pastries from his many pockets. She frowned when he pulled three soda cans from the back of his pants.

"What, they ran out of bags?" she asked.

He eyed her innocently.

She blinked in disbelief. "Did you pay for those?"

"Totally."

She stepped out of the car, fuming. Only to let more smoke out of her ears at finding the cashier inside with a blank look in his eyes. When she tried to explain that she was paying for her friend's purchases because he'd forgotten, the guy gave her a funny look.

"Which friend?" he asked slowly, as if she was a child or mental patient escapee.

She pointed outside, to the car, where nobody sat inside. No one at all.

"You've been the only customer in the last fifteen minutes," the guy said, again cautiously. His hand shifted nervously. Oh, wonderful. Maybe now he thought she was there to rob him.

Damn Kai.

Bonnie only huffed, then smacked a twenty on the counter.

"Miss?"

"Just put half in the register, the other half for tip."

Then she stalked out.

Kai really wasn't in the car, though. Or anywhere in the vicinity of the gas station. For kicks, she drove off by herself. Then spent half an hour debating returning for him.

She found him soon enough strolling by the edge of the trees, an arm out with his back turned to her as she pulled in. His thumb was up, calling for her to break it in half. She almost gave in to the urge.

"Hi," he called back easily. "Fancy meeting you here. Wanna see something?"

She sat on the hood, staring stonily out and saying nothing as he turned and smiled at her, walking forwards. He stopped right in front of her, too close, then shut his eyes as his mind opened to her. Instantly, the vista turned from day to night. The road was equally as abandoned. She was almost in the same spot, only now she was him, alone and looking around as he inched the car forward. His gut churned, and then when she stared at his hands on the wheel the further out he crept along the road, his fingers started fading away. Followed slowly by his arms. His face fell into a grimace, twisted with pain. The car stopped, then reversed. His arms returned to sight. His body leaned forward to rest his forehead against the wheel, his breathing uneven and coming out choked.

Her eyes flew open. Kai stood before her, blocking the sun. Her mouth opened to gasp out his name, as she was still caught in the wrenching effects of the spell that almost took him away.

He eased himself to sit beside her on the hood, opening a bag of chips that he offered to her.

They munched in companionable silence.

"So that's the limit, then," she said quietly. "What do you think happens to you?"

He sighed, brushing off his hands. "Another prison world? An eternity of nothing? Not exactly an experiment I care to repeat, Bonster."

She couldn't blame him. She didn't much want him to, either. And though he sounded like he'd be careful not to test it more, there was always that nagging doubt in her head that one day he'd reach the point where this modified restraint could drive him nuts enough again to come back and push the limits.

Kai's freedom was possible only by a set degree of miles within her range. Mystically drawn with Bonnie at its center, his orbit was constant and more often than not lately, drawing closer to her. A nagging problem she didn't know how to combat. What else, after all, was new? She hadn't gotten rid of vampires in her town, or that baseball from her room. It was only natural she couldn't shake Kai out of her hair.

What was _un_ natural had everything to do with her reaction to that. Nothing about her wanted him shaken. The idea of him gone left an unpleasant taste in her brain.

He'd grown on her.

"How much didja leave him with?" he asked, after another stretch of quiet.

"Twenty bucks. You owe me."

The long road ahead of them lay dappled in sunlight, as a breeze kicked up and swept a strand of leaves across concrete. A strand of her hair tickled her cheek, and she felt warm fingers brush her skin as he tucked the hair behind her ear. His thumb lingered for a beat just there, between her jaw and her neck. The need to press herself further into his touch swept over her.

Instead she kept her eyes on the road, while her face warmed under his gaze. He always stared too long at her.

"Hey, what's behind your ear?" he asked softly.

She turned and found a hint of a smirk on his mouth, as he pulled at the air by her ear. A long stemmed flower, she saw, rich and red with doubling petals that tilted backwards. He laid it on her lap. It looked like nothing she'd seen before, but then, she wasn't the gardening type.

"Fun fact: those types of flowers have no scent, their leaves and buds were used in treating epilepsy, and they're also known as the Star of the Devil."

She snorted, then picked it up and inhaled. He was right. No fragrance reached her nose.

"What is it?"

"Dahlia." He leaned back, crossed his arms, and rested his head on them to stare up at the sky. "Laugh if you want, but among the books on my reading list in sixteen years of me-time, there was this one dusty tome I browsed through. Victorian language of flowers. Figured one day I'd use it to score with chicks. Tell me if it's working."

"Nope."

"Shoot. Oh, well."

"What's the dahlia stand for?"

"Couple things. Dignity, elegance." She threw him a skeptical glance that turned suspicious when his grin grew playful as he lifted a wrist and shook his pulsing amber stone-studded band at her, then placed a hand on his chest, adding in a softer, higher pitched voice, "oh, and commitment and a _bond that lasts forever_."

She couldn't help snorting louder, that eventually turned into a tiny chuckle.

"Yeah, thought you'd get a kick."

They shared a rueful smile.

"Sooo," he drawled. "Feel like extending the road trip now? Fun as it is twiddling my thumbs in your one-post-office town, I got a few places to be."

Her eyes narrowed in thought, though he probably would read it to mean she'd say no. In all fairness, he didn't deserve to be stuck there and she was nowhere qualified to be anyone's jailer. But that's where they were, thanks to Emily.

"Give me two days," she said. "And no killing anyone."

"Fine. Take all the fun out of it."

"And no road trip."

He bit his mouth, too smug. "I know. I already booked our flights."

"Wow. You actually paid for them?"

"I've conjured myself a small fortune, Bon. Back there at the gas station? That was just for kicks. It's funny riling you up."

She kicked him in the shins. Hard.

"No killing," she repeated firmly.

"Consider me leashed," he replied, taunting, but when she turned to face him, instead of finding resentment or anger, the violence in his eyes carried elements of warmth that went well with his dilated pupils. "I've been your good little puppy anyway. Don't you think it's time I earned a reward?"

Loaded question, that. She was grateful he hadn't resorted to kidnapping her. Then pissed at the thought of having to carry gratitude for something like _that_. When had her standards lowered? The resentment piled higher, threatening to topple over until she realized that unlike Damon, Kai hadn't done much harm since escaping (to anyone not a vampire), beyond leeching her of magic for a few seconds. He'd never even officially threatened to kill her, not even offhand, the way she'd heard Elena gripe Damon always did with everyone.

It was possible Bonnie was projecting.

Kai sat up and scooted closer, appearing for all the world like he was mulling something serious.

"What if we run into an axe murderer on the road?" he tried.

"You let me handle it."

"Pfffbt."

"Well, I'm not writing out the fine print. No killing, that's the only way I'll come. Quit being an ass."

Then her horrible brain let her eyes drift to that specific part of his anatomy, encased pretty darn snugly in his jeans. He caught it, her look, and returned it with gusto by burning a hole through her chest, where her shirt, thankfully, hid the way her breasts spilled out and her nipples grew into pinpoint pricks, the longer he stared.

He filled up so much of her space, sitting there, harmless but not while their eyes got stuck on each other. Tight throbbing grew somewhere in her lower parts. He shared the feeling, she knew as she glanced away.

They couldn't hold up much longer.

The shadow of a baby beard on his face called to her, and her hands twitched to reach up and touch it the closer his face got.

"Should we head home?" he whispered, low.

"Yep," she replied, chirpy, shooting up and far away and willing herself not to dwell on how when he said 'home' her brain offered up the image of her _bed_ and them writhing together on it.

She mentally cast a short sleeping spell on herself for the rest of the way home, to avoid sharing more tension for three hours. There was a chance she'd make Kai pull over so she could climb onto his lap. When sleep wore off, it was just in time to find him driving into town limits. By mutual and nonverbal agreement, they each knew to stay well away from the other.

Her excuse for keeping busy was to enlist her friends into helping hide her short absence from town.

Leaving with him _at all_ was a terrible idea. Deep in her bones Bonnie knew this, and so did her friends.

"Now?" Caroline asked, shocked. "You're leaving _now_? Where? With who?"

Bonnie kept a stiff upper lip, refusing to divulge any details.

Caroline took one squinty look at her face, then gasped. With unabashed delight. "Your mystery guy. You're _so_ going off with him!"

"No."

"Uh-huh, and probably _getting_ off, too!"

"Oh, my God," Bonnie muttered, then covered her flaming cheeks. "Caroline, I swear..."

But she couldn't complain, now that the blonde as if by miracle was all cooperation. Just the thought of Bonnie Bennett going on an adventure was all it took, apparently. Her friend was practically squealing. Elena looked slightly worried.

"Is he a vampire?" the brunette asked, finally.

"No!"

"Because that's fine, I'm the last one to judge. We just need to know which side he's on."

Elena being the tougher sell was a total sack of horse dung.

"You don't get to be disapproving," Bonnie warned her. "Last week you were playing road warrior with Damon."

"I'm not, Bonnie," Elena said, her long curtain of hair sweeping side to side as she shook her head. "But who is this guy? I went with Damon for info, not to bond. Now we know more about Emily's grimoire and that journal." Elena using reason like that wasn't unexpected, with her friend wholeheartedly embracing the mission to keep Stefan and Jeremy and the rest of the town trouble-free. "You all knew everything about that trip. This one...you're giving us nothing. What if you get hurt? Plus, hello? Your Grams. She'll kill you."

"And then us," Caroline chimed in, though reluctantly. "Elena's got a point."

"Just trust me, guys," Bonnie reassured them, feeling uncertainty in her gut. "I won't be long. Nothing's gonna happen. I got this, okay?"

It was easier to spell Elena into standing in for her than it was for Caroline-five inches much too tall-to do the same. When Grams dropped her off the Gilbert family lake house, suspiciously checking the grounds to make sure things were legit and no hint of trouble was afoot, Bonnie ducked away upstairs to find Elena ready but nervous. Bonnie made quick work of the spell, then gaped as Elena turned into her identical twin, shedding several inches in height, growing curls in her brown hair, her skin taking on a latte tone.

Bonnie number two stared at her jittery, until downstairs someone called her name. Bonnie pushed her temporary dupe out of the door, patting her shoulders good luck, and stayed hidden and cloaked inside a closet.

She watched Elena-as-Bonnie fumble her way through the act, helped along by Caroline and Matt. And Grams never bought a clue.

A three-day outing with her childhood friends, to reconnect. Grams seemed relieved, to Bonnie's surprise. If Elena and Caroline were back in her good graces, Bonnie had no idea why but she wasn't going to question it now.

Not when she had a reforming sociopath to baby-sit.

-oOoOo-

She'd agreed. Being flabbergasted, he hid it well. Then spent two days staying out of her hair, keeping a close watch for any signs and symptoms of what he'd come to call 'the Bonnie complex' rearing its head. Guilt, fretting, dismay-anything that could be read in her face, signaling either that she'd come to the realization that Portland was where his enemies sat together like ducks waiting oblivious for him to knock their tiny little heads off, or to try the same with him once his presence was known; or that she was coming along, agreeing to let her pet sociopath out to play; or that she was coming along, and they had this _thing_ growing between them that needed some kind of fix. And soon.

At the moment, he was equally as invested in exploring that as he was in wreaking havoc in Portland.

But he kept that and other things to himself, and waited patiently. Just like the good little puppy he'd mockingly called himself. She didn't need to know that it was partly true. Maybe this trip wouldn't be eventful in the wrong way. Maybe it'd be eventful on a more personal level. With Bonnie. Maybe it was time.

He only really needed a few coven items. Along with one thing his twin left behind back at the Parker family home.

-oOoOo-

All too soon, she was on the plane, thousands of miles from home. Kai was right beside her, completely unruffled by the nearness or the damn arctic temperature in the cabin. He called for the attendant for extra snacks and pillows, proceeding to make himself comfortable and sleep away several hours of the flight.

She followed suit, shortly.

"Bonnie..."

 _Long fingers skimmed against her and set off tiny sparks on her skin at the hip. She gasped when a warm hand cupped her waist, squeezing softly at the bare spot between her pajama pants and her tank, before they dipped below her waistband to brush the swell of her bottom. When they rested there, her throaty groan was all she could muster in protest. She needed that hand lower, but just where she couldn't be sure._

"Bonnie!"

"Mmm," she moaned, kicking involuntarily.

"Ow."

And woke herself up with it. Her eyes shot open, her ears burning as soon as her brain offered up the memory of that hazy dream.

Kai slid a glance at her. The back of his head rested against the closed window. To her total surprise, he wasn't smirking. Times like these, she had to be in awe of her luck. Sitting next to an attractive guy, unchaperoned, almost to the point of snuggling since they were sharing a blanket after the flight attendant failed to deliver hers. It would've been romantic and cute, if the guy in question wasn't a reforming murderer en route to the hometown where he enacted his heinous acts of violence.

What took the absolute cake, though? That she was having _thoughts_. Sleeping sexy ones, more and more of them at inconvenient times. Like now.

And by the telltale pink around his neck and ears and on his cheeks, Kai had gotten a mental eyeful of them, via that stupid, awful link.

"We're landing," he murmured, eyeing her with an unwavering gaze that told her his flush didn't stem from embarrassment the way hers did.

 _Oh, God._

She squirmed in her seat, the damp friction in her lower regions another telltale sign.

"Have to use the potty," was her first grumbling reply, making a face at herself as soon as she shot up and had her back turned. Yep. 'Potty.' Because apparently, she couldn't just say 'restroom' like a normal person.

"Oh, ma'am," came the soft, high voice. "If you can please have a seat? The captain has the light on for seatbelts."

"I'll be quick."

She ducked inside the tiny restroom before the flight attendant could protest, then slammed the door shut in her face. Screw her anyway, for failing to deliver the blanket, leading to Bonnie forcefully tugging half of Kai's towards her, which in turn wandered into questionable sharing of body heat. No wonder she'd had that dream.

But it was always easy to point fingers elsewhere. The truth was, Bonnie was there as a result of her own bad choice.

-oOoOo-

Nothing answered her.

Her frown deepened, the greater the radius the spell covered. Joshua had shared it with her, without much prompting, to her great relief. He was as invested in locating his son as she was, but she suspected it wasn't for the reasons that had caused his son's imprisonment so many years back.

Too much of his curious desperation faced her, on that day that she had sipped tea while he downed gin, in that small town in New York where she pried out of him little details-the dwindling number of families in the Gemini fold, the lack of cohesion among the few elders remaining-that painted a stark picture of one coven's slow unraveling throughout the years. And then of course, there was the matter of how the former Gemini private detective had failed to produce anything new in the search for Joshua Parker's would-be heirs.

With Rudy out of town and Bonnie off with her friends at the Gilbert lake house for a relaxing, normal weekend away from vampires, Sheila didn't waste time.

The spell brought her to the prison world she helped build, for the sociopathic former heir, who had eliminated himself from contention by massacring half his family. For her own peace of mind, she needed this spell to give her the right result.

In this mute, bleak city, Malachai Parker's essence should have glared out at her, obvious and distorting the emptiness, a large inkblot marring a blank page. There went all her ideas of peace, as she eyed the row of cars parked in the downtown Mystic Falls neighborhood. The very same, where Joshua had promised her was his son's last known whereabouts in his unique jail cell.

She dropped the spell, pulling her magic back in as more quiet taunted her. This was her third trip here, after trying Portland, then Clearwater, and all the other cities the solitary inmate here had recently visited.

Malachai was nowhere to be found.

Rarely did she get angry. Now in this ghost world, Sheila Bennett gave into a small tantrum. The cars lining the quaint street before her to a one flew up, hovered for two seconds, then crashed down in a cacophony of broken metal, rubber, and plastic, colliding with hard concrete.

"You sonovabitch," she gritted out, minutes later from her attic, rooting through her cloaked, protected cabinets that no eyes could see but her own. She drew out a small duffel, rifled through that to find manacles and a heavy iron mask. "Sent me on a wild goose chase. There's nothing living in that world, Joshua."

The prolonged quiet that followed eased none of her temper or worries.

"He's out." It wasn't a question. "I didn't free him."

"I know," she retorted. "The pair of them-well, what did you imagine would happen, you fool? They found a way. If that damn spell of yours has poisoned my granddaughter-if your son's done _anything_ to twist her up-"

"You forget who you're speaking to, Sheila."

"A failure of a father? The impotent ruler of what's looking more and more like a defunct coven? Which one, hmm, Joshua?" Outside, wind battered the windows and walls, rattling her kitchen shelves. She blew out a silent, slow breath, closing her eyes. "This link you forced between Malachai and Bonnie? Once I find your deranged son, I'm destroying it."

"At the expense of your granddaughter's sanity?"

"Oh, I'll find a workaround. You know I always do."

"If you harm Malachai-"

"Don't play the concerned father now, Joshua. What _ever_ made you think it was wise to slip this connection in? To invade Bonnie's mind like this? You had no right! And it was your idea to imprison your own son in the first place!"

"I had no other choice! He _murd_ -" Here he stopped, his voice cracking. "The children...how we found them-Jesus fucking Christ, Sheila. What else could I do? I didn't arrive on my own. The other elders were with me. I had no time to clean up. Couldn't figure out how to explain this. It was either imprisonment or a death sentence for him from the elders. As much as blood as my hands carried already, I couldn't do it. Some things...even I can draw the line."

How coincidental that he would have that principle when it came to the one time he needed to be ruthless.

"If he puts up a fight," she said stonily. "The Tribunal will support me, no matter what extreme measures I need to take."

"You're not executing my son. That's outside your jurisdiction. We can neutralize him another way."

"Do your best. Just don't become an obstacle, Joshua. I'll bring your damn house down."

"Goddammit, Sheil-"

"Whatever happened," she cut in calmly. "To the man who always said, 'coven before family?' Don't tell me you finally grew a heart, you poor bastard. Now that you've lost all your children. What a joke. Get your head on straight, Joshua."

She hung up.

-oOoOo-

May was still months away, but as she followed Kai along the darkened path that led to his childhood home, Bonnie fought the smell of spring flowers drifting to her nose. She closed her eyes against it, and the borrowed memories that surged to mind-the muffled shouts and terrified crying, the frenzied steps on wooden floors made by small feet seeking help and escape from a madman, the smear of fresh red on banisters and doors and dusty furniture.

Now she followed that same madman, to stalk together the same halls that witnessed his brief reign of terror.

 _Stop it stop it don't think he was punished you killed him yourself for them don't think it's over..._

Her nose bumped against his back. So engrossed in muting her loathing, Bonnie had failed to note that Kai had pulled up short to turn and stare down at her. The lack of expression in his face might have misled some, that and the full way he met her eyes. But his bravado didn't stem from lack of emotions. She knew better. Her conscience had infected him. If anything, from the stone set of his jaw, his sad, horrible little feelings just then more than rivaled hers. But he said nothing, just lifted a brow.

"What?" she asked defensively, infusing as much impatience into her tone as she brushed roughly by his shoulder. "You're wasting time."

"You can't come in if you're gonna be weird."

"Fine. I'll stay here. If the house is booby-trapped and you get stuck there...sayonara. Nice knowing you."

"Bonnie..." the up and down movements of his Adam's apple struck her as too pronounced.

A tiny part of her relished the obvious struggle in his face and the pleading in his voice. It gave her peace of mind knowing he wasn't putting on a show. She could taste the guilt and self-loathing in her own mind, wafting off his form. All bitter now, where before she guessed it probably had tasted, to his sociopathic palette, mostly sweet and satisfied.

He really was infected.

So was she.

She smiled. "Welcome home, Kai."

Then stalked up the steps, flung a hand out and broke the front doors open.

Even as dark as it was, the cheeriness before her spawned a moment of disorientation. Where was the crimson trail on the stained oak floor boards, the small smeared handprints along the side of that one door by the stairs? The couch was smaller, its lines modern, the upholstery the wrong color. All the framed photos were missing. Upstairs, a light had been left on.

But the magic scan brought up nothing. The house was empty. The de-cloaking spell she and Kai had placed on it minutes ago meant not even Joshua or the other elders couldn't hide from them.

"Guess who's back from vacay, dad!" Kai called.

She turned, saw the disconnect between his easy breezy tone and the hardened set to his eyes. No fooling her, not when her gut churned with his guilt and the urge to curl up into a ball wouldn't ease.

"Tell me if you need tissues," she threw over her shoulder, then flopped onto the couch, resting her boots on the arm.

He could do all the damn dirty work himself. This wasn't her freakshow family affair. She and her friends had their own hands full, and Kai was lucky she hadn't given him much of a hard time when he whisked them both to Portland, barely giving her enough notice to scrap together a plan to fool both Grams and her dad.

Glancing at him expecting to find his tortured face on the verge of crumpling, she felt her cheeks burn instead. His eyes were trained on her legs, crossed at the ankles as she lounged on the couch attempting her own form of bravado. No, she refused to let this house creep her out. Those poor sad murdered kids had gotten their pound of flesh courtesy of her possession. And also-hell no, she _totally_ wouldn't let Kai's ogling get to her. There were tights beneath the short skirt she wore-thick, wool, dark tights that gave no hint of skin. If he liked the shape of her calves and thighs, so be it.

In payback, she just kept her neutral gaze on his until he cleared his throat and turned away. Her own eyes roamed his ass, underneath the skinny jeans he swore he despised, yet never failed to wear. In many rinses and cuff styles. For a nineties guy, he sure had adapted well to the times. Her appreciative, furtive gaze swept over the snug jacket spanning his broad shoulders for good measure. His face was smooth again, boyish but the chiseled jaw did funny things to her now, especially when he was irked about something. Usually about her.

What it boiled down to outside of magic, was her own depressing lack of action for the better part of the year.

Yet...they were _friends_. Friends could ogle each other. Especially friends sneaking inside a murder house, and needing any and all help to avoid letting bad memories overwhelm them.

High-pitched creaking broke the quiet as Kai disappeared upstairs. Under the faint light from the hall above, shadows in the corner played with Bonnie's head. She had to remind herself that she was a witch. Boogeymen bounding out from dark closets would be stupid to try her now. Hot, bothered, intimately and still inexplicably sharing feelings and dreams with the homicidal siphoner responsible for turning her hot and bothered.

They were inappropriate, her thoughts. Inconvenient. Who knew how much of them really belonged to her anyway, and how much was from _him_? Of course he'd be horny after prolonged solitude and naturally, she'd be someone he might fixate on. She was torn between dwelling on that and peering closer at the looming darkness beyond the back door, where the pool lay. Where memories of Kai's last jaunt to that part of the house called out to be explored. This time, it wasn't his dead siblings pushing that urge on her. No, it was that pesky thing that belonged to the old Bonnie, that wanted to keep Kai in a familiar box so things wouldn't get messier between them.

She chased those thoughts, letting the shallow overtake her to keep the other darker thoughts at bay. She didn't want to drown in memories of a child's voice bubbling beneath the pool, begging for mercy. Or imagine another body swinging from the rails, limp and open-eyed, veins bulging from a mottled face and swollen neck.

"Found them," came the deep voice, devoid of its usual lighter, almost musical lilt. Kai bounded downstairs, a small duffel over his shoulder. "Let's go."

She didn't need a second prompt, or bother to look behind her as she followed him out the door. Down the steps they practically flew, stopping only when Kai again abruptly pulled short beside the hollowed stump of a tree on the lifeless grass, brown leaves crunching beneath his urgent steps. He reached inside and pulled out a dagger-covered in dirt but still sharp, still silver. Magic coated it.

She shrank away, then tilted her face stubbornly when he threw her an exasperated look.

"Really? I'm gonna stab you here? Now? You're like the only member of my fan club, Bonnie."

She scoffed. "You wish."

"You're a fan of looking at my butt."

"I've seen better," she blurted without even the intent to be defensive. She was just telling the truth. Caroline had force fed too many pictures from the internet showcasing wondrous booties, spanning Hollywood and sports teams and even the royals. Bonnie was spoiled for asses for life, because of her friend's obsession with celebrity ones. But as real actual people went that Bonnie knew? Kai's was easily up there. "Tone and shape and bounce."

"Oh, yeah? And where have you seen those? Late-night Showtime on one of your sleepovers at your galpals' house? Drunken frat party? Skinny dipping with Matt, maybe?"

Their steps slowed the further they got from the large cottage with the wraparound porch. The way it clung to the main structure that reminded Bonnie of a large forearm-Kai's, she dimly realized, encasing a small neck. When he choked his little brother before dunking him into the pool.

"My ex, for one."

"Give it up," he replied, looking to the side as if he was fighting the need to peek over his shoulder at the place that had haunted his thoughts every day for the last several months. "You're not even old enough to have an ex."

But she was old enough for him to get off on, was almost what she said. Almost, if only because she needed him to look at her, and not the house. She didn't know why she cared now that they were outside of it. It hadn't been anything to her, watching him struggle when they'd stood at the scene of his crime, feeling slightly suffocated by its walls.

Wrong time, though, to broach her newest gripe. She'd had more than enough of those fleeting glimpses into his late night dreams, and also those that hit her in the middle of the damn day. Out of nowhere. An illicit slide show of them rubbing against each other, naked or otherwise. In the most random places. Recently, she'd started suspecting that she was the woman with the black stocking and red heels wrapped around Kai, in that nightmare he'd had so long ago now, it seemed, of the mass funeral that had displaced her from the real world and into his. Amidst all that madness, it always struck her as strange that Pamela Anderson had replaced the original woman. Now she realized he'd only been distracting Bonnie from recognizing _herself_.

God, it was screwed up, how badly they needed to screw each other. He'd been at it longer than her, though. He was better at handling urges.

Her, not so much. She didn't much take to feeling like a horny guy all the time, around Kai. The one person she was sure could obliterate this problem was probably also the same person that might send Kai back to the prison world, just for looking at Bonnie funny. If Grams ever found out _this_ little side effect? Kai would die. Slow and painful.

In the grand scheme of things, Bonnie had always had the idea to lose her virginity to some harmless guy that she could trust not to fumble or hurt her too bad. Life was funny sometimes.

"You'd be surprised," she mumbled, not even sure what would come out next out of her mouth, as she dove inside the car.

"At?"

He followed her lead, tucking himself inside the driver's side.

"What I'm old enough for."

Now he studied her, slit-eyed, that customary smirk in hiding as the nearby streetlamp filtering through the windshield turned him pale. Like the ghosts they were both afraid would come find them, even here on the sidewalk. It was that more than anything that gave her the boost to explore this sexual attraction to the killer before her. To combat the anxiety, Bonnie gave into a bad idea, and filled her mind with images of straddling him, exactly as he looked now. Nose flaring, eyes burning, jaw tight.

 _She easily fit into that space between the steering wheel and his chest, and her skirt rode up far enough for him to cup her ass and keep them warm in his much larger hands, that strayed up along her hips, and her waist, and slipped under her the hem of her shirt to find the bottom curve of her breasts, spilling out of a bra that hiked up the more she grinded against him._

She'd never tried that with Scott or any other boy. Bonnie wasn't really sure what appropriate level of grind might turn Kai hard. Scott had been easy. He could look at a remote control and his erection would just pop out like a Jack-in-the-Box. He'd wanted so badly to be her first. She'd never given in, and he'd called her a tease. Marking their last official date. The next time she saw him, after third period by her locker, she'd dumped him. He'd insisted on a misunderstanding, that it was a joke.

Back then, maybe she hadn't quite developed the sense of humor she had now.

Courtesy, probably, of the sociopath who was at that moment watching her watch him, and getting an even better look at the dirty thoughts in her head. This, after visiting the home where he'd killed his siblings.

A lot of levels of twisted, this friendship of theirs.

 _His thumbs brushed the front of her shirt, right over her stiff nipples poking through her bra. He leaned in, his warm breath turning them harder while her panties rubbed achingly wet against the part of her tights between her thighs, growing impossibly damp..._

 _He cupped the back of her head, to bring her lips closer to his..._

He gave a dark laugh, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the wheel and peeled out of the spot.

"Naughty girl," he muttered, swallowing hard again. "Good looking out, though, Bon. Thanks."

And after that, he took them to a bar.

Not a bar with posh tables and chairs and normal, attractive people trying to fall drunkenly into bed with each other. No, he took them to the tiny bar at the restaurant within walking distance of their motel, where they each stayed in separate but adjoined rooms.

She shrugged it off, because he had the right idea regardless. After that trip to his house, she was spooked by having visited the actual Parker stronghold and taking in that air of tragedy that lingered despite nothing appearing to look the same. That she'd been capable of sprawling on the couch acting like it didn't matter-no, worse, that familiar feelings of repulsion had failed to hit and instead she'd indulged in smutty fantasies to distract them both...

She was overheated and worried and in need of beer.

Kai ordered them both sodas. Annoyed, she speared him with a glare but he was busy tapping at the touchscreen a little ineptly and then flagging down the bartender. Kai was finished ordering before her and proceeded to immerse himself in the touchscreen again. Soon his entranced face was lost in a card game, as he slurped from his drink.

"Nifty," he murmured at one point, eyes still locked on the screen like he was a toddler in a television daze. "I mean, seriously. Why do people even need people anymore?"

Then he laughed to himself. She rolled her eyes, slumping her chin onto her hand as she studied him unabashedly. Right now it was tough imagining herself straddling his lap, while his eyes reflected childlike wonder. It'd been the right move, though. That could've gone downhill, their trip to his home. And now, here, she was hard pressed to remember what made her think it was a good idea, coming onto him in the car using her stupid fantasy. They'd been out of danger at that point. And she was terrible at that, hadn't properly paid attention to the way her friends played the game all these years. How Caroline swaggered or Elena channeled coy. No, Bonnie was good at facing down her fears and rushing headlong into things without thought. Blurty and blunt and still, despite everything, bubbly.

Was it possible she wasn't his type?

Her hand covered her eyes, as she gave herself a little shake of the head to clear it and her irksome thoughts. She didn't have time for this. Boycrazy Bonnie rearing her head now was possibly the worst thing ever. Precisely why, she noted, skipping her eyes around the dim restaurant, letting them linger on the cute guys further down the bar and smiling at her in between swigs of their beer, she knew a lot of this restless sexual hunger came from an external source-Kai.

And who knew he of all people was capable of stepping on the breaks? The other week, when she'd taken his bait over that apple, and nearly licked his fingers as she teased them both to insanity...she could've sworn he wanted to kiss her. Or maybe that was her reading into it too eagerly. Her influence on him meant at some point that they'd level each other out, but what if that never happened? She'd turn into a slobby frat boy while she witnessed his metamorphosis into a dull little sociopath.

Or maybe-and more logically, and less harsh on her ego-he was just using his brains, knowing bad choices when it came to her could possibly get him killed.

So he'd taken the high road. Maybe the moment deserved a little more pride in him. _Concentrate on that_ , she told herself. It had to help with ignoring the spikes of disappointment that particular pride was laced with, cutting parts of her just a bit. It hurt, even though she logically understood. He wasn't rejecting her, only being smart.

She had to see the bright side here. After that trip into his house, a successful one that didn't see an argument erupt between them, or worse, a showdown with his dad or other members of the coven-Bonnie rallied against the glum setting inside her. She smiled at him, clinking her soda glass to his when he raised a questioning brow.

"What're we celebrating?" he asked.

"A boring night. Nobody getting killed." She tossed her soda back, pretending the fizz was stronger. Why had he ordered for her? She wasn't a child. "I can't remember the last time nothing happened on a Saturday night. So thanks."

"Is that a dare, Bon?"

She snorted. "Just enjoy it, Kai. Peace and quiet. Ta-da!"

They both spared simultaneous paranoid glances around.

"Texas Hold'em?" he offered a second later, tilting the screen so she could get a piece of the action.

Heads tilted close, sharing their plates of appetizers, she proved that on this touchscreen, she was at least old enough to kick his ass in poker. An hour later, they were still at the bar, the touchscreen forgotten as she listened to him talk about the dagger he'd pulled out of the tree stump.

Neither of them had drank more than soda, and she hadn't asked, but she wasn't about to get in the way if he felt like sharing more personal details. Especially when it came to _that_ night, sixteen years ago.

"Can't hold it against Jo. I did gut her and carve out her spleen. You know, after a long period of self-reflection and also this unnecessary bout of conscience that your do-gooder self has saddled me with, I've come to the realization that I could've handled things better."

"Oh," was her only dry comment.

"I know you still think I'm a monster."

"You don't really care what I think."

He smiled fondly. "See, this is why I'm glad the universe picked you to be my witch in shining armor and pull me out of the black hole of remorseless living in 1994."

"My snappy comebacks?"

"Not being glib, okay? It's..." he paused, waving a hand to her, then let out what sounded possibly like a laugh of surrender. "The thing I was most scared of, was trying to figure out how to live in the world again. Clearly, you and this link have been a positive influence on me. You're a good person, Bonnie. Brave, loyal, patient. And now...I'm more like you."

Quick as a whip, his hand found a grip on her wrist, wrapping firmly there as he tugged her close enough so she saw the way his grin turned biting, the light in his eyes just shy of maniacal. "And now you're more like me."

"I guess some things will never change," she said through gritted teeth.

She didn't snatch her hand back, or push away, and his hold on her went lax, his fingers easing into a hold that felt far less intimidating, but more dangerous. He rubbed against the inner skin along her palm, in small circles that siphoned tiny currents of her magic. But she didn't let go at the small bites along her nerve endings, and then gasped in surprise when he channeled it right back into her, filling her hand and the rest of her arm with warm fire that swept up and into her belly with a pleasant tingle. Her magic filtered through his and coursing over her every pore sent her body into a tizzy. Sparks erupted from the tips of her fingers.

"Shh," he said, covering her hands with his.

She stifled a moan. "Kai-"

"I know."

This-had to be wrong. Illicit, but in a different way from the fantasies that mutually played out in their heads. Sharing magic with him, in public, with the bartender at the corner giving them funny glances, and the rest of the customers peeking over with curiosity. She was almost in his lap, and their hands were under the counter. Everyone else entertained an idea of them being inappropriate the normal way.

But this was so much more, and worse, and _better_.

"They tricked me good," he said softly, keeping their gazes locked, as her breath hitched and their magic entwined inside her body. "Instead of using the power of the eclipse to merge, my dad used it to send me to the prison world. And where'd Jo's magic go? It made zero sense. Magic doesn't just, like, disappear. But Emily and her way with pouring magic in and out of jewelry got me thinking. I know about talismans. But Jo didn't wear any, and she had her magic those few minutes before we started the merge ceremony. And then it hit me. My sneaky little twin sister hid her magic in this."

Still almost draped against him, the back of his hand brushed her breasts as he patted his coat pocket, partially drawing out the knife now covered in a sheath. The smug lines of his face smoothed, and she felt him withdraw, both his magic and his touch.

"It's still there," she said quietly, sensing the muted pulse of magic from the knife.

"Still here."

"You don't even need the magic from that."

"No," he agreed. "Not now. But someday, I will. You see, Bonnie, coven always comes first with my father. It's like his kids don't even matter. He treated me like crap for twenty-two years and then locked me up. What do you think will be the first order of business when he learns that I'm out?"

She wanted to touch his face, or maybe scratch his eyes out. The way he stared down at her now, with a hint of suspicion, ruffled all kinds of feathers. She was already unsteady after the stunt he just pulled. Fielding his paranoia now...she wasn't in the mood.

He suspected that she would try to fool him the way his twin had. Even after everything. Or maybe he had a different fear.

"You're worried I don't care either way," she mused. "If your father locks you up again or leaves you alone."

"Why would you? If you're gaining my charming attributes..."

Trailing off, he looked away, as if by force.

"So what you're not saying is," she said slowly. "You _do_ care what I think. You wanna know if I have your back."

His jaw tightened. She finally gave in then, and swept a lazy finger up to the hardened lines there, reveling in the prickle of his scruff as she tilted his face back her way. She really wanted to kiss the guy, but instead only managed an even smile, angling her head back with a bite of her lip in the way she'd seen him do so often.

"I guess we'll find out," she said, then turned and left him behind. Hoping and dreading, in equal measures, that she'd hear the scraping of his chair and his footsteps not long in following.

-oOoOo-

He dawdled at the bar.

Because if he followed and walked with Bonnie back to the motel, he'd end up fucking her. In the myriad ways he'd imagined, that had gnawed the corners of his brain over and over every goddamn day and night for the last month and a half of living in the same house as her. Sharing walls and halls and a magical psychic link that held greater promise of turning him madder than the hatter. Though maybe not as mad as he himself had been, close to sixteen years ago.

Never mind that it felt like a near thing.

The times that Rudy was home were especially trying. Those always drove Kai to seek refuge in local trips away from the Hopkins household. Where before he would've paid it no mind, now the little bit of Bonnie in him shied away from entertaining plans of fornicating with a sixteen year old vixen underneath her own stupid, clueless dad's roof, while said dad went around putting work first and kid last. The way Rudy made drive-by appearances in Bonnie's life was almost entertaining. A week away for work here, and then his face would pop in for a day or two to shove the pressure of overachievement on his daughter's shoulders as if a useless set of diplomas was all Bonnie fucking Bennett, witch prodigy, was good for. Then away daddy Hopkins would go, leaving behind a vaguely stern farewell and a reminder for Bonnie to check in with her grandmother while he once more left fatherhood at the doormat, stomping it off like so much dirt from his shoes.

It should've made Bonnie easy to read, and manipulate. Maybe before, yes. Now, not so much. Kai had a love/hate relationship with how unpredictable she was. And that was before the damn link had bloomed to full effect.

But her impact on his sleep was a constant thing.

Not entirely irksome-actually, kind of welcome. But he stalled on how to act, unsure with the novelty of feeling _noble_ for once in his life, if giving in to what they both wanted was what Bonnie deserved.

 _He_ didn't much deserve anything, his newly minted conscience was saying, but the old Malachai sure as hell would take it, would already have plowed between her legs, a dozen times by now until she forgot her name and screamed his.

So on those little trips away, every once in a while-not always, because he had self-control (oozed it as a general rule, after his imprisonment)-he continued to sleep with random women. Not enough to mark notches, definitely nowhere near enough to make up for his marathon run of abstinence. But it sated him. And in this day and age and small town of not-quite Southern hicks, willing, witty females aspiring for novelty appeared out of thin air almost like he'd conjured them up himself.

It's what he needed to do now, bringing his head around but stalling as he followed that thought. He and Bonnie had adjoining rooms. Usually sex with women got loud. Not on his part. The women now were just more vocal, a few of them into dirty talk. Equally strange to him, because as a matter of principle sex was nothing more than a biological need to bump uglies and lay his seed against someone's cervix (or near it, those times he decided magical protection could use a hand and a condom felt wise). He wasn't much of a fan of getting snuggly, or chatty in bed. Most times, he just left. Every once in a while, he got kicked out. A few women apparently didn't think much of his bedside manner, after copulation.

But what did it matter, those rare blips, when the other women seemed to enjoy it even more than him?

So he cast his eyes around warily, still wondering if it'd be okay if Bonnie actually heard him banging out some other chick's brains. She kept saying they were friends anyway. Being the involuntary recipient of a heart as if he'd been some kind of diseased tin man, it was an issue now.

The rare problem with this thing called friendship was that in this case...it _did_ matter. He actually gave a fuck. Possibly two. Parts of him found it repellent, the idea of Bonnie hearing him bang someone's brains out. What he wanted more than anything right now and for possibly the last couple months-about as much as meting out proper vengeance to all the elders and his father-was to do that to _her_.

No other card-carrying member of the white hat witch variety would've gone back to his house with him, fully knowing what had gone down there. Hell, she'd kicked her shoes up on the couch to mock his new feelings of guilt, while he stood in the living room seized with the urge to pry his skull apart and rip out memories from his brain, of gutting and hanging and drowning half his family.

Then her short little skirt had distracted him, lurid and awful but awesome, too, with its hem riding up. Okay, she wore tights. But right there under his nose were her legs, and they might as well have been bare. He'd been exposed to her long enough in those fucking pajama shorts that she threw her old robe over. It never hid those creamy bronzed thighs that gleamed more brightly and better than anything on those commercials he'd seen of Nair. Her legs-her skin-the scent of her fresh after a shower, all of that was permanently seared into his mind, along with the times he'd found her sweaty, bloodied, worn out and cranky. Like that day she'd been missing a limb from an invisibility spell and her cheerleader uniform greeted him with spots of dried blood. Because she had to _save_ her friend's sister who was _already_ dead.

Things like that left him scratching his head but slightly awed. And today, too. With her faking nonchalance, as if none of their little jaunt bothered her, when he knew otherwise.

Every inch of her probably wanted to fry his ass again for the murders, those few minutes they were inside the horror house.

Instead, she'd sat in the car later and opened her own mind up. Rocking his world anew all over again with that image of her on his lap and ready to bounce away.

Goddammit. He needed to eat her out in thanks, at the very least. Who the hell was this girl? Clearly, he'd underestimated her.

"It can't be."

The voice was right behind him. Kai didn't recognize it, almost paid it no heed, as he kept thinking of Bonnie's room, and how many steps it would take to get there. He had long strides. By his estimation, five hundred feet was the distance between his barstool and the motel, which meant about a hundred twenty five paces. Less if he took a huge running leap at the tail end of it, to land flat at her door.

Except that'd come across a bit desperate.

"Malachai Parker...you're dead."

He stiffened, then went loose on instinct. Smooth as butter, he turned in his seat and tossed a killer, megawatt smile at the slack-jawed woman behind him. Blonde, cute, medium height, her magic not familiar and yet not strange. Somewhere, he'd encountered something pretty damn similar before. But where?

The door jangled open, and a man stepped inside the restaurant. He was also blonde, tall, probably considered himself buff. He was in his thirties, and wielding significant firepower of the mystical variety. Kai let the magic settle against his.

 _Oh, riiight._

Kai remembered him better as a leaner kid with glasses and shaggy hair. Pimply. They were a trio. They had an older sister, Grace. Kai had slept with her a few times, the summer before senior year in high school. Grace had problems with her magic, and Kai had talked her into letting him borrow them. Her little crush on him meant he at least had a well of power to draw from for a few months. But because the whim to play fair had hit him, he'd also showed her how to wield her magic better. They'd had a little fun for a while there, until her parents found out. Grace hadn't been allowed to see or speak to him again. And her parents? Two of the elders who had been present on May 9, 1994.

"How's Gracie?" Kai asked cheerfully, of the man glowering back at him from the other end of the room.

A hundred dishes, plates, utensils, and sharper everyday household items rose in the air. Other customers scattered like the wind, their screams and shouts trailing them as they fled.

"Tell her the walking dead says hi."

The makeshift weapons launched like missiles. Overhead, the pendant light at the bar tore off the ceiling and Kai could only spare a moment to regret his promise to Bonnie. Now would be a fucking wonderful time to demolish this restaurant, and wreck a person or two. A guy could really use an outlet once in a while, was his honest guiding motto in life.

Mentally, he cast the spell that ported him out of the restaurant and into Bonnie's motel room. It was just in the nick of time, although a steak knife had managed to leave a mark. He swept a hand up to catch the trail of blood from his cheek, eyeing it detachedly at it stained his fingertip.

Bonnie was mid-stride and on her way out of the bathroom. Naturally and in pure karmic form- her top was off. A racerback push-up bra in plain worn pink cotton stared up at him, her cleavage winking back. Rudely.

His thoughts wanted to scatter just like the other diners mere seconds ago, but he was too cool for that, so he managed a gulp that sounded painful to his own ears.

"What the hell, Kai?!" she all but shrieked.

"First, pink's a _great_ color on you. Second, um, we gotta go."

Outside and somewhere not at all too far away-something exploded. The walls shook from its effects, one picture frame clattering to the ground. The television and lights blinked out, and his hair stood on end as something pulsed out and nearly drove him to the ground.

Through the windows, blackness peeked out.

"What was that?" Bonnie demanded.

"Maybe the restaurant, or magnetic pulse...or my coven. Come to collect."

Her face took on a look of exasperation. _Really?_ her features spelled out.

"I didn't start it," he protested mildly, then flung a hand out so his belongings and hers all flew out of closets and doors and into a single luggage bag.

-oOoOo-

Across the street, a man stood eyeing the buildings around him. In his truck, in the backseat, two forms lay slumped together.

The spell he'd used to disarm them would knock them out for at least the rest of the day. He'd watched their approach in the restaurant, and couldn't remember either of them making calls out to anyone.

Nearby, the restaurant he'd just left stood trying not to collapse on itself. He held up a hand, and the building righted slowly, cracked brick by cracked brick, the surrounding bent electrical poles straightening.

Looking towards the motel down the road, the man spared a frustrated growl at the sky, and wondered when his sanity would make its return. He dearly missed it.

That was his only excuse for letting his murderous, blacksheep son escape now.

Joshua Parker turned to his truck, stepped inside, and drove off, running through a list of viable reasons for the inevitable meeting that would follow, when the two unconscious members of his coven awoke with no memory of their night.

* * *

A/N: Hiiii. Bound's back. Thanks for hanging in there, guys. ;)


	13. Chapter 12

**A/N:** Rated **M.** But only towards the end. To anyone who finds underage Bonnie with 37-y.o. disguised as 22 y.o. Kai squicky, **please hit your back buttons.** If you absolutely have to keep going, you're going to regret not hitting that back button three-quarters of the way through. If you read all the way to end and get mad, and tell me it's squicky, then please also share something in your review that you weren't already warned about. :)

Also, this _-In italics-_ indicates Kai's POV interrupting Bonnie's. Happens at the last section. Just to clear up any confusion.

Also to my anonymous reviewer who thinks he/she is badgering me about updates. I wanted to get this out before the end of March, just for you. You're awesome. Thanks so much for the love.

 **Chapter 12**

 _ **SNAFU**_

The lake house was over two thousand square feet large, open and airy and with minimal furniture. When she was younger, Elena used to find it scary, especially those summer nights when Jeremy woke her up and they snuck downstairs to watch zombie movies and eat s'mores while mom and dad were upstairs sleeping. Back then, she'd turned nervous looks over her shoulder, expecting rotting corpses trailing down the stairs to find her and her brother, and eat their brains. Back then, the wooden cabin retreat had felt huge and dark and foreign, and she'd often wanted to run away, back to the safety of her real home in Mystic Falls.

"Little girl."

No zombie stared back now, but she wanted to glance nervously over her shoulder, the sense of being attacked from behind overwhelming. Elena wished desperately for that long ago zombie. Even going for her brains, it wouldn't be anywhere close to being as terrifying as the creature that faced her now, capable of summoning who knew what.

"You're going to tell me where my granddaughter is."

The cabin had never felt so small, or suffocating. It wasn't the addition of furniture or decorations over the years, either. Nothing much had changed here, since she was younger.

It was only the woman standing near the fireplace now, idly picking through the smoking embers with the iron poker. Whose bright idea had it been to let a witch get close enough to play with the damn fire?

Flames bathed the older woman's face, turning hooded features eerie. Outside came the gust of wind, rattling the walls and doing much the same inside Elena's ribs. She'd never been so frightened of anyone. A lot of it had to do with how heavy her bones had gotten, as soon as Bonnie's grandmother set foot inside to disrupt their pizza dinner.

As if Elena's body had decided, on its own, that it no longer needed to work.

She chased off the surge of panic and fear trying to come out of the back of her throat. Vomiting now wouldn't be smart. She still looked like Bonnie, she could play this off. She swallowed bile as she tried to laugh.

"Grams," she said, her hand twitching. She wanted to tuck her hair behind her ears, a nervous tic. But her fingers would barely move, much less her arm. It was enough just getting the words out, without her mouth feeling like cotton had been shoved inside. "It's me. I'm right here."

A ghost of a smile flickered over Sheila Bennett's face. More flames erupted out from the fireplace. Beside her, Caroline, also stuck in place in her chair, let out a whimper.

"Uh-oh," the blonde whispered.

Next to her, Elena found Matt sitting equally helplessly, unmoving but for the wooden stare he cast up at the older woman. The way his features worked, he was fighting anger, but something else, too-betrayal, Elena realized. Because Grams was here, submitting their willpower to hers in a way outside of normal human bonds. Grams, the cute old lady who made the best pasta and let her and Caroline paint her nails when they were back in third grade. Who was also a grade-A witch, turned out, as capable of feats of terrifying power as the vampires trapped in the tomb, or Damon Salvatore. And she didn't need crows, or fangs, or abnormal speed and strength. No, she only had to _think_ of something, for it to happen.

"Okay," Caroline said. "We have a really, really good explanation for this, if you could just calm down for a sec..."

Caroline trailed off, Elena suspected because she was struggling to find that really good explanation for their formerly predictable best friend's sudden departure from Mystic Falls, probably in the company of some total stranger that only Caroline had met, for maybe...five seconds...

What had they all been thinking? Elena fought to tame a grimace as she looked at Sheila's face. Almost like the old lady guessed her thoughts, the witch's expression grew dark. The fireplace behind the old lady cast off an unholy glow as she slowly stepped near.

 _Where are you, come on,_ Elena urged.

The breeze came right before the swoosh in her ears, like it always did. Then her hair brushed across her face, and she felt cool, strong arms enfold her. She'd always hated the cold, but a half year of knowing Stefan had changed her mind.

Now she found comfort in the contrast of his chilled skin and soft shirts.

She especially welcomed it now, as he dropped a concerned look into her face, his brown eyes quick to note her other friends in a similar predicament to her, and the woman who stood in the center of the room, eyeing Stefan with a curl of her lip. He straightened, stepping cautiously forward. The irony wasn't lost on Elena, this faceoff between her boyfriend and her best friend's grandmother, one a creature of ice and the other of fire.

"I'm not sure what I'm walking in on," he said in that low, serious tone, meant to pacify usually, but Elena didn't think it would work here. "But whatever it is, the Sheila Bennett I know wouldn't resort to harming innocent kids."

"You think you know me? That's mighty presumptuous."

Elena had never witnessed Stefan at odds with anyone but another vampire. She remembered the times she'd seen Bonnie close her eyes and the world tilted at her command, with just a few words. Witches could bleed, sure, a lot easier than vampires, but only if you got close enough to touch them. Sheila Bennett didn't look like a witch who would be an easy target.

And plus, she didn't want Bonnie's grandmother to bleed. But she sure as hell wasn't going to let Stefan die.

"Please, Grams," she pleaded. "I'm sorry, okay? We made a mistake. Stefan's here to help. Not fight you. Bonnie...we can call her. You'll see. She's okay."

But that plea didn't work at all. If anything, instead of calming her, the older woman's jaw turned more rigid.

"You were always the gullible one, Elena. And you have no clue what you're talking about. Bonnie's going to get herself _killed_."

-oOoOo-

Several hours after fleeing Portland, Bonnie was fairly sure she was headed towards certain doom.

 _But at least_ , a tiny part of her mind reasoned, _it's a nice night._

The headset Kai had made her wear kept her from hearing him well, as he piloted the small plane. The endless din of the engine, the exhaust, the propeller, and all the other things that kept them thousands of miles above land meant she could stay quiet and just look around. Nothing but a few short inches of metal separated her flesh-and-bone body from the expanse of star-lit, ink-dark skies. When she chanced a look down, what met her were patchy, gauzy layers of clouds below the jet-and a rapid descent to her death.

The world of lights growing smaller under her feet had started this round of stressing. Now that she could see nothing of it, that stress had grown exponentially. What made it worse was how she'd waited, swallowing down her objections to the entire thing since it became clear to her that getting them out of Portland would have to be mostly the Kai Parker show.

She gnawed her lip now in between glaring at him, as he pursed his lips into a whistle.

At least one of them was enjoying this.

She couldn't even nap, and buoy her fear that they would crash by imagining maybe she'd be snoring through it, and die in her sleep. Who could sleep through that, anyway? On the other hand, maybe a crash was the way to go. Considering they now had members of the Gemini coven hot on their heels. Or so she suspected, though Kai seemed a little lax about personal security, after sending out a magical scan and turning up empty.

She'd memorized the incantation. Once they landed, she would use that spell herself to make sure he hadn't missed anything.

Twenty minutes later of lip-biting and hand-wringing, the plane dipped and sent her belly into somersaults, before it evened out. Kai pressed a button and released the controls, as the plane coasted along. One of his hands found hers and squeezed. Her aggravation mounted watching him laugh, his gaze too full of amusement at the expense of her nerves. Without thought her fist went out to punch him. It caught him square in the face and knocked his head back.

"Urgh!"

He reached up with his other hand, patting the bridge of his nose.

"Not the reaction I imagined," he said, his voice carrying a lot better in the sudden lack of noise. He hadn't bothered wearing a headset, and reached over now to take hers off. She slapped his hands away, glowering as she snatched them off herself.

"We stole a plane, Kai!"

"Borrowed it," he said gamely. "With permission, even."

"Because you spelled the owner into being your personal zombie," she seethed. "Which means...we also stole a person. Abduction. Kind of a felony."

"Probably class five," he agreed cheerfully. "But how was I gonna get the keys, the passcodes, and security clearance? His cooperation was needed for that." His scoffing, shaking head was dismissive. "I thought you were smart."

She pointed to the man tied up in the back of the small jet. The near-total stranger was still unconscious, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

"How are we going to explain that when we land?"

"Relax. You don't really think I'm carting his dead weight around like that? Hello, I am _all_ about protecting my back. I've only got the one. When the sleeping spell wears off, he'll be our personal manservant again. I'll put him on standby once we land at the FBO."

"Kai, you can't...people aren't your toys-"

In frustration, she drew short her sentence to turn to the window. They weren't in a car, and the wide stretch of night sky at her fingertips meant she couldn't exactly kick her door open and throw herself out. But oh, God. This boy would drive her to murder.

"I know, you're right. But sometimes, Bonnie? They _can_ be tools."

He grinned when she looked back at him.

"In more ways than one."

"I wish those two Geminis had caught you."

"I'm teaching you so much, Bon. I know you really want to say 'thank you, Kai. I've never been so enlightened and turned on at the same time. So glad you made it out of that diner in tip-top shape.' And to that, I say: _Aww, you're welcome._ "

He snatched her wrist, tugging and bringing their faces close. Gone was the playful light in his gray eyes. They'd turned dark, eaten up by his black pupils.

"Where's all this coming from, hmm? You were hunky-dory letting me lead the escape plan, which might I mention was pretty damn inspired. No objections when we walked into that private airport and I scouted for our getaway ride. So what's got your panties in a bunch, Bonster?" He tossed his head back at the unconscious man. "Douchebag back there was on the phone for ten minutes letting the entire lobby overhear how his portfolio increased by twenty percent in the time it took him to fly from Napa Valley to Portland. Then he gave the waiter stank 'tude over the limited choice of drinks. Come _on_. Do you _really_ feel that bad for him?"

His voice had dropped, erasing a lot of the bite from his mini tirade. His mouth was too near. She wasn't looking at it, but his gaze had dropped to her own and damn if that didn't make her want to lick her lips a little. And then lick his, too.

She mushed his face away.

"You said we were only going to Portland."

"Ah-ah-ah. I don't recall ever saying that."

"Fine, what about the glamour you said you'd use so nobody would recognize you when we went back to your neighborhood. What happened to that?"

He shrugged. "I lied. Kinda need them to know I'm back, Bonnie. Have to get the pieces on the board at some point, you know. There's only so much a locator spell can do. And Google. Hooo boy." He chuckled. "You do _not_ wanna know the type of results that hit'cha when you type in 'secret witch coven members.' You think I'm unstable, you need to see some of these jumblers."

"Tumblr," she grumbled.

"Oh, you blog?" he asked, face lighting up.

She facepalmed.

"Hey, chill, I won't judge."

"Who found you? Were they elders?"

"Nope. Pups, really, back in 1994 the last time I saw them. I kinda sorta messed around with their older sister. Totally mutual, by the way, because I _can_ be a fun guy, Bonnie. But the parental units didn't approve." He clucked in disappointment. "They're two of the elders on my shit list, as it happens."

"Because they cared enough about their daughter to cut ties with her Norman Bates boyfriend?"

"Ouch. Can I just set the record straight? I don't have a mommy fixation so Norman's not apt."

"When it comes to being stabby and creepy, sure it is."

"I used a bat, too. And electrical wire. When you're creative and resourceful enough, pretty much every day household things can be dangerous if used in the right way. MacGyver's a better comparison. If he was more okay with murder."

She rolled her eyes.

"And no, to get back to the topic. My ex's parents just happened to be part of the group of elders that helped my dad trap me in that forest, a decade and a half ago when you were still in diapers. Once, I caught them telling my dad that Jo was as dangerous and unnecessary to have around as me."

At that, she stared. What the hell kind of coven were the Geminis?

"I have a compelling reason to wish them a painful, excruciating death. In other words, quit talking out of your curvaceous ass, Bon."

She seethed internally some more, quelling another urge to look at him when he used that deep, teasing voice that now inspired the worst reactions in her. When she got back home, she was going to call Scott and ask him out on a date.

"Who's in St. Augustine?" she asked.

"My second most favorite person in the world."

Her brain whirled, arriving at one or two possibilities, then she stopped, scrunching up her face.

"How does a sociopath have a list of favorite people, period? Unless you mean favorite people _to maim or stab_."

Oddly, he didn't meet her eyes as he fiddled with the instrument panel. "It's a short list. Only two names."

Her next question was, _who's your first most favorite?_ But her mouth stayed shut, as she too glanced away, back at the window. It crossed her mind to also wonder what he had planned for his second favorite person, but her brain surprised her with a lack of worry. Somehow, she just knew he wasn't flying them over to do harm. Or maybe she was fooling herself. Because a smile was threatening to escape, as she considered that the only other person to make his list would've topped it, and as stupid as it was to expect that her name was anywhere on it-she still remembered in vivid detail his own fresh memories of rolling around a queen sized bed with a leggy, busty and very naked redhead-Bonnie almost smiled anyway.

As the jet continued cruising, Kai's other hand stayed on one of her own, his finger tracing absently along the side of her wrist, in random patterns that scattered her thoughts to the barely-there clouds that surrounded their getaway ride.

-oOoOo-

The FBO they touched down on was a short drive from city limits. In almost sixteen years of time in a world devoid of a pulse, Kai had on occasion sought out a substitute for cheer by holing up in sunny Florida. The highs had never lasted long, mostly because without the annoying tourists flooding Orlando, or the eclectic beat of Miami natives, or the friendly beach babes in Clearwater-there was little else to recommend a state overrun with strip malls and swampland. But St. Augustine...Kai had never been there, and so on his first pass into its downtown area, the scattered corral of cobblestone streets and old historic houses fronted with a view of the Atlantic on its east gave him a pleasant little surprise.

Only, this wasn't a sightseeing trip. He had a lot on his plate at the moment, not the least of which was contemplating the appropriate disposal of certain members of his coven, such as the pair he'd run into at the bar in Portland whose welcome back greetings had been lacking in hospitality. But that figured lower on his list. Now that he'd drawn out his coven, letting them stumble into finding out that the big, bad wolf was back to blow their house down, using a modified cloaking spell on himself and Bonnie would be the smart move. And he would've done it himself hours ago, but he wanted to cast the spell with her.

Waiting around for a certain someone's shift to end didn't have to be such a chore, after all. Here in the nation's oldest city, there didn't seem to be a lack of things to do—museums and shops and riverside dining. But mostly, what he really wanted to do involved people-no, one person.

Bonnie.

He was ready to do _her_. Beyond the fuck ready. It didn't matter anymore, all of the dumb objections his new coat of good-guy armor kept offering. Deep down, he was still Malachai Parker, and months of sitting around debating the ethics of entertaining boners over the thought of his not-quite-legal savior no longer made any sense, in the grand scheme of things and on general principle. Having killed his kid siblings, what the fuck was he doing letting a little thing like two something years shy of Bonnie reaching the voting age get in the way of their fun? She'd lived through enough of a shit show in her town to scare off grown-ups twice her age. She wasn't a damn _kid_. More to the point, her own ancestor Emily had practically sanctioned this. Hell, Sheila bitchass Bennett herself had written the script, albeit with a totally demented hand that had no clue what it was unleashing.

Bonnie the fledgling witch was finally going to get her broomstick to ride-

"Hello, you put his stuff in the wrong room."

The impatient huff which followed that statement jarred Kai out of his thoughts. He frowned as Bonnie lifted the large duffel he'd just placed inside the hotel room, then 'oofed' out an unprepared breath when she shoved it against his chest.

"Take care of your guest, Kai."

"What're you talking about? It goes here."

"No, it goes where _he_ goes."

She nodded out to the man staring blankly at them as he stood on the corridor. Bonnie stalked up to the mindjacked pilot and led him firmly into the neighboring room, then closed the door behind her before stepping quickly back inside, relief and something smug across her face. He suspected she would try to kick him out next, to go the way of the baggage and their hostage. Not for the first time, Kai wondered just why he'd let her bulldoze over his plans to keep the man in limbo back in the sleeping quarters at the FBO. But Miss Bleeding Heart had kept insisting not to leave their hostage alone, in case he snapped out of his mystical mental fog. The implication being that Kai's spell would malfunction, somehow. As if.

"This _is_ where he goes," he said, waving his hand around the spare walls. "This is his room. You just put him in ours."

She sputtered a laugh. " _Ours_? Ummm. Lemme think. Yea, _no._ "

Kai was ready for this. He had a convincing argument and all, had rehearsed it in his head enough times.

"Look, it makes sense for us to be the bunk buddies. We need to work on a few spells."

"Fine, but why do we need to sleep together?"

He stared down at her, feeling his nostrils flaring out at her choice of words. He knew what she'd meant, and she knew he knew it, too, but they both also knew how little it took these days to turn any innocent statement into innuendo. And that sentence, unfortunately, was about as innocent as a hooker in a white dress.

Kai failed to tame a smirk. Bonnie's reaction enthralled him, twin faint flushes floating across her cheeks. His eye twitched. The door behind her closed softly on its own as he stepped nearer and tilted his face down to hers to let his breath graze her skin.

"Why don't we?"

She was young, but also _her_. It came as no shock to him that even with the flustered blush on her face and the gleam of alarm that failed to stay hidden in her eyes, her chin jutted up with determination. Her gaze met his with more than a hint of matching hunger. It was enough to bring his hand up, for the tip of his finger to finally land on the mouth that he'd spent an embarrassing few thousand hours contemplating, in his waking moments and amidst fitful sleep.

Under his touch, they quivered, her lips parting to let his finger glide over silky, moist plumpness. She kept staring. He couldn't break contact with her eyes, or help the thought that it'd be the easiest thing in the world to bend a little more down and let his mouth take over. It took hold, kept him entranced, as he moved to make the fantasy real. He caught her gasp on his mouth a hair's fraction away from hers, and then-

BZZZZZZ!

BZZZZZZ!

Green, heavy-lidded eyes turned wide and blinking, and then before his brain could catch up-Bonnie scurried away, clearing her throat to answer her phone.

"H-hey, Care."

Her voice was hoarse, low. Whiskeyed tones, would've been more apt, except she was an underage cheerleader-slash-lifeguard-slash-AP-student and not too acquainted with hard liquor going by his memories of her drinks of choice-the girly martinis and occasional keg brews from the last few trips clubbing and housepartying with her friends. Sure, it'd been a few months since she'd done anything like it, but her taste couldn't have changed that drastically. All Kai knew was that gravelly tone was important. Usually signaling arousal, if his own experience could be trusted. He knew if he tried to talk now, it'd probably sound more like a growl. Of the frustrated, blue-balled variety since he hadn't had sex with a woman in roughly two weeks. It'd been even longer than that since the last time he'd gotten off without needing Bonnie's face and voice Inside his head, to replace the random woman writhing with him.

If all this pushed the envelope from disturbed sociopathy into disturbed sociopathic pervdom, what could he do? Granted, he'd always been the type to act contrary to everyone's expectations for the most part, but never actually delving into being pervert _ed._ He'd cared too little about sex except as a basic physiological need, back in the day when episodes of being a horny teenager interfered with his lofty ambitions of taking over the coven.

Even now, catering to his growing obsession with Bonnie was too much. He knew it. There were other things that needed doing, things his rational mind kept coming back to, but fuck, he just wanted her. That was all. Or everything. And not necessarily about his smaller, lower brain at work, either. The _way_ he wanted her irked-all-encompassing, beyond just meeting basic physiological needs. His hands itched to touch her, his ears perked just hearing her voice, and this low-level buzz filled him up with what his brain could only mark with disgust as...warm and cozy _goo_...anytime he talked and she was there to listen.

Bonnie was a good listener sometimes-and why the hell that mattered terrified him a little.

 _Fuck._ There was something wrong with him.

"Caroline, slow down. What're you say-"

She was cut off, her face sinking into a frown. Watching her, he sagged against the wall, tightness across his shoulders and back and groin mingling in awful ways that made him want to find a bat and someone's face to swing into. As much as he loved having magic at his beck and call, nothing beat using the hands that nature gave you for a good, old fashioned beating.

"Oh, no."

At her whisper, her eyes found his across the room. The regular zing of awareness jolted him, watching her approach. When she was close enough to touch, he gave into it, tucking her hair out of the way as the pad of his thumb found her cheek and traced a line down to her jaw.

She swatted his hand away, putting her phone on speaker.

"I'm sorry you can't understand your friend, Bonnie."

An older woman's voice filled the room. Instantly his heated blood went cold. Sight unseen, a layer of gloom nearly killed all the wicked intentions he'd just been entertaining towards Bonnie.

Her fucking granny was on the phone.

"Oh, God," Bonnie muttered, closing her eyes in dismay.

"Not exactly, child. Just me."

"Grams-"

"Bonnie Sheila Bennett." The deep, prolonged sigh on the other end of the line reverberated across the walls of the small room. Very dramatic, and threatening, meant to intimidate. If he squinted, he could almost see Bonnie quaking in her shoes.

Kai smiled, then drew her in, wrapping his hands around her waist.

"Are you alone?" asked her grandmother.

Bonnie angled her gaze up to his, varying expressions flashing across the small-heart shaped face. Most of them were too quick to name, but he placed one as confused, the other as resolved, and waited with a quirk of his brow. She'd let him lead them out of Portland and onto the next leg of their journey. Now was a good time to return the favor.

"You're in the captain's seat," he whispered against her ear, nuzzling her skin and indulging in another smirk when she shivered, but didn't pull away.

"I'm alone," Bonnie said shakily into the phone. "I'll be home soon."

"You will," came her grandmother's unyielding answer. "Because I'm going to find you."

"Grams-"

"You're lying to me, child. Do you have any idea what you're doing? The kind of danger you're in?"

"I'm fine. Quit treating me like a-"

"What, a kid? Bonnie, you basically ran away from home. How else am I supposed-"

"I'm a witch. Taking care of witch business. Guess who that sounds like, hmm?"

"You don't sound like _yourself_ , child. And I _know_ you're not alone."

"Oh, fine. Whatever. You know everything. You know best. Especially when it comes to me, right? I mean, you kept me in the dark about my powers. You went behind my back to link my life to another dimension. Did I get mad? Not really. And now you're throwing a fit that I took a page out of your book? Maybe you need to stop acting like Dad and actually stick around long enough to talk to me."

Her furrowed brow wavered, as if Bonnie had abruptly switched places and heard her own rant, and now wanted to check herself. Kai hoped she didn't. That was the maddest he'd ever seen her, where he wasn't on the receiving end. In his experience, venting equaled good times. And Bonnie Bennett was in sore need of those.

"I'm sorry, Grams. Just-don't come after me. Promise I'll see you soon."

She didn't hang up, and neither did the woman on the other end. Instead, quiet reigned for long beats where Kai wondered if it'd be the right time to steal a kiss from Bonnie. He was proud of her, standing up to her grandmother. She was really coming along with growing that backbone.

"I'm at the lake house. Your friends have been talking enough for all of us."

He felt her tense, his fingers automatically tightening along her form as she erupted into movement. When he moved to keep her in place, she twisted away from his grasp, glaring at the phone. Soon smoke rose out of its corners, wafting into the air between them.

"What's that mean?" Bonnie demanded. "Did you hex them or something?"

"Now why would I need to do that? Maybe they're as worried about you as I am."

"Know what? I'm _glad_ they're spilling. Am I on speaker? Elena, Care, did you fill her in about our vampire problem? Ya know, the one that we _kids_ haven't been able to fix yet. Maybe you can finally help a little with that, Grams."

"Bonnie-"

The phone exploded. Kai shielded his eyes from the debris and scattered ashes that flew out, but it served nothing. The remains of her cellphone rained down onto the carpet, him, and Bonnie, coating them in bits of melted dark powdery plastic and metal. Through mutually dusted lashes, they stared at each other.

He started chuckling. Her look grew stony.

"Shut. Up. _Kai._ "

She stormed out, into the cool night air.

"Aw, c'mon. It's a little funny." Lazily, he sauntered out to follow her as she stalked along the corridor. "Hey, where ya going?"

"To clean myself off."

"Right, well the shower's that way, _inside_ the room."

She paused, tossing a look over her shoulder. He almost fell over his own feet, catching her eyes. They oozed spite.

"There's a pool. I'm going for a swim. Use the shower if you want." She shrugged. "Or join me. I don't care."

-oOoOo-

A random devil had seized hold of her. She knew it because she waded in the emerald pool, shirtless and jeansless, while Kai lounged on one of the folded chairs nearby and burned a hole through the back of her bra as she splashed water on her face. He had yet to take her up on her offer to join in earlier, which felt like another small rejection, and while she played it cool it was clear by the way her insides stung…she did sort of care.

Bonnie wanted to extend the invitation again, but a voice inside her head that sounded too much like Caroline urged her to stay quiet and just rub her arms and shoulders. Slowly, with droplets of water that trailed her skin in what she hoped was an appealing way. Like in those dumb movies where the girl managed to seduce the hot older guy.

It was a point of pride for her. She needed at least one person in the category of legal adult to see her as capable. She had done so much in the last couple months with her magic. If nothing else, she could at least use Kai as a distraction from the black mood that had settled over her in the wake of her phone call with Grams. Also from the fact that here she was, swimming in the hotel pool like a really late spring breaker, up to no good, while two floors up was a complete stranger, ensnared by magic into loaning her and Kai his small jet.

What if he had kids? Bonnie had already noted the lack of a ring on his finger, but it didn't mean he wasn't a dad. Maybe he'd missed tucking them in tonight. Maybe even now a couple of toddlers were wondering about their dad...

Except there were no pictures of kids in his wallet that she'd seen, when she'd scoured earlier, to satisfy the chafing against her conscience. Plus he carried himself like the type of guy who didn't make time for kids. As opposed, she reflected with a hint of resentment, to her own dad, who didn't have time for her but gave everyone the impression of being the world's most conscientious papa. His wallet still held pictures of her from years back, gap-toothed after losing a few baby teeth. And his phone was filled with alarms of her trophy ceremonies in school, that he scheduled into his calendar but somehow never managed to attend. Her dad was the type to try, on paper.

This guy they'd held hostage...not so much. He probably only answered to himself. Judging from the call he'd been on back at the private Portland airstrip lobby, his most prized possession in life was his portfolio. And who could really blame him, when it meant having the means to fly his own damn plane.

It made their acts no less criminal, but she felt a little better anyway. Lucky thing she hadn't tossed that tidbit in to spite Grams at the end of the call. She'd almost done it, but turned back at the last moment. Grams was tight with Sheriff Forbes, who had a hefty network of police friends. A phone call would be all it took to track them down this way, if Grams got wind of their hostage. It wouldn't take much to trace them.

 _And right now_ , Bonnie thought idly, _I don't wanna be found._

"Sooo," came the annoying chirpy tone. "Still pissed at the world? Wanna talk about it?"

"No."

"Thank God. Would hate for the rest of the night turn into an episode of _Blossom_. Personally, I really never understood the hype with that show."

Irked and because he brought it out of her, she flipped him the finger. Then pretended he wasn't there, as she floated herself on her back, staring up at the night sky. It was hours before dawn. She was at the point of sleep-deprived that it no longer felt necessary.

"Speaking of pissed at the world," she said. "Did you ever have moments when you didn't hate being stuck in 1994?"

"Sure."

The rapid reply was easy, a sniper bullet tearing into the calm she'd tried to wrap herself in. She fought not to flounder in the water, and managed to stay afloat on her back only by focusing on her curiosity.

"For how long?"

"A couple days, usually. A week at most. I'd go on these nifty benders, or pretend I was a Destructicon. I destroyed Tokyo once. Took me forever, but the payoff was _totally_ worth it."

She mulled over that and the conspiratorial glee in his voice. Never mind that she didn't know exactly what the hell a destructicon was, but it sounded like something that suited Kai. And it sounded-fun.

"I kind of want to go back there," she said hesitantly. "For a little bit."

He said nothing.

"For me," she added. "Not to toss you back in jail or anything. I just...think it'd be nice. Being alone. Not having-"

"Anyone be the boss of you? Like your overbearing granny and the negligent papa bear?"

"Or people to dig up from shallow graves. Or friends to save from rapey vampires."

"Mmm. Yeah. Kinda see your point."

That one unsettled her, how he did understand. Before, it wouldn't have mattered to him. Her body spasmed over the water, bringing her out of floating.

"Thing is," he added. "That kind of complacency never lasted long, Bonnie. See, as much as I can't stand other people, I still need them around. Double goes for you. You'd go nuts. I call six months, tops, before you'd go bonkers and try to kill yourself from sheer boredom. Or loneliness. Take your pick."

She peered across the dim light, meeting his eyes intent on her.

"I could never go back now," he said softly. "I wouldn't last a month."

"Why? You made it sixteen years before. Selling yourself short, Kai."

"I only missed _things_ before."

She couldn't even begin to fathom that. "You didn't miss anyone? Not even your twin?"

He shrugged. "Betrayal does that, ya know. Not like there was a huge well of affection left to draw from."

"What makes it any different now?"

His answering smile was fleet. A little doubtful, as he looked away quickly, then back to her again. He only shrugged.

"What if you had company?"

"You offering?"

She almost said yes. And that she would miss him, too.

"Truth, Bonnie? In terms of overbearing, you could do a lot worse than your grandmother. Not that I'm her biggest fan," he added, crossing his feet at the ankles when she swam up, tucking her forearm one on top of the other, then her chin above it all as she leaned on the edge of the concrete to study his face as he went on. "But at least she was looking out for you. Just her bad luck she went to the wrong person for help."

"What're you talking about?"

For a self-described stone-cold killer, he sure did have expressive moments. Like now. The way his lids turned heavy, as his deep sigh morphed into a snort of disgust, that turned quickly into low chuckles. The mercurial change set her on edge again as she waited. A familiar sharpness spliced her insides. She wouldn't like this, whatever he had to say. His jaw worked. Oh, no. She wouldn't like it at all.

"What do you know, Kai?"

He kept his gaze averted towards the sky, as his feet swung up and down in rhythm for long, quiet moments.

"I worked it out awhile back, right after Sheila confessed her big booboo to you. The kind of magic she needed for a spell bridging dimensions? It would take an entire coven. Or someone who wielded the _collective power_ of one."

Her jaw loosened, almost went slack processing his words. He didn't mean-there was no way her grandmother had asked—

"My dad, Bonnie. Joshua Parker, mighty Gemini leader. D-bag supremo. We can thank him for adding this little Vulcan mindmeld of ours into your grandmother's plan to save you and keep the Bennett line from going extinct."

"But why would he…"

She trailed off, failing to understand what was in it for the Gemini ruler. Even if he wanted a softer, kinder version of Kai it didn't change that he was still a siphoner. Something the coven would never allow in a future leader. And anyway, Joshua Parker had spare heirs to carry on his name and coven.

"Yep. I can tell what you're thinking. And nope. I, uh, can't make heads or tails of it yet. But it won't be long. I was always the only kid of his capable of jumping through his mental hoops." He smiled tightly. "My dad, the prankster."

"Do you think he knows you're out?"

"Probably. Damn parents. Eyes in the back of their head. I'll have fun poking his out."

Bonnie dismissed that, chewing on other thoughts. It didn't sound urgent, anyway, whenever it was he got around to doing that to his dad.

"Guess we've got a lot in common, huh? We're both witches. Hot. Smart. Maybe me more than you a little on that last one. Also burdened with sneaky geriatric relatives. Must be why we're such pals."

She broke into laughter, despite herself unable to help the wave of something fond, deep in her gut and twisting this way and that, while she rolled her eyes at him.

"She's telling the truth, you know."

"Who?"

"Granny B. You're headed to an early grave, at the rate you're going. That's a little something I have working knowledge on, by the way. As many times as I killed myself in the prison world, I got plenty of exposure to that whole 'go into the light' thing everyone keeps talking about." He frowned. "Sometimes it wasn't light."

"Pitched fork and a pair of horns waving for you to join the other party?"

"Ha. No. Try an empty space, and me deaf, dumb, and blind. And things crawling over my skin, trying to tell me something. Like they talk through touch."

He'd slowly sat up as he talked, and now hunched forward to rest his elbows on his knees as he glowered at his hands, lost in thought.

"Hard to place most of them clearly, but the very last time I died in the prison world-you were there, remember? I went somewhere else. Not so empty, that one. Too many things trying to brand me. I haven't forgotten _that_."

"What were they?"

His face started falling into that look of exasperation that told her he was impatient with her questions, that she was asking the wrong ones. She thought of her grandmother, and what she'd confessed about the spell that tied Bonnie from this world, and through a loophole, into Kai's.

"You were on the ancestral plane. They were the spirits."

His face cleared in approval.

"Not my usual ones," he said. "They weren't so much creepy-crawling messages on my skin as they were...burning me. Giving me a little taste of what taking a running leap into the sun might feel like."

She frowned, trying to follow.

"Somehow, probably because of _you_ skipping around _my_ prison world, I took a detour into your ancestral plane. Not the Gemini one."

She rose further out of the water, ready to jump out and almost tackle him. She'd read enough about the spirits to know it took serious mojo connecting with them in any way, and vice versa. Whatever they had been trying to communicate to Kai-

"Do you remember their message?"

This time, he stayed mum.

She flung water at him, propelling it higher with a quick spell so it arched out enough to reach his face. He sputtered.

"Gah! Come on, Bonnie!"

"What did they say, Kai?" she demanded, swinging more water out, in a wild arc that sloshed his clothes.

"Argh, fine!" He _motused_ her back, towards the middle of the pool. Her body glided through water, away from him. He stood, an angry smile in place as he watched her involuntary retreat. "Something about finding your peace! There! You probably _will_ die. Soon. Happy now?"

Goosebumps followed the trail of water along her neck and shoulders. Unsure if that was the cold or Kai's words or his abruptly searing gaze, she whirled away, closing her eyes to let the magic simmering beneath her skin filter out. The cool water bubbled, mist rising from the surface as she let the temperature rise, quickly. The rush of heat had her gasping, pleasure dipping from her stomach down to her toes. It didn't matter what he said. She was alive-here-now. He was probably wrong, anyway.

She heard a scrape and turned. Kai's eyes glinted as he approached, kicking chairs out of his way, toeing off his shoes and socks carelessly.

"You turned the pool into an oversized hot tub," came the low, saccharine drawl. "What kind of an idiot passes that up?"

She sank deeper under the water, keeping herself submerged up to her mouth. It was better this way. She didn't have to say anything, as he gazed down.

"Bonnie."

The water was so clear, she could see all the way down to her feet. His eyes swept her from head to toes, then lingered on her chest. Her bra was thin cotton, unpadded, giving him an unobstructed view of her stiff nipples. But that was from the cold, she reasoned. Nothing else.

"I'm coming in."

 _Bad idea yes please do what you want._

She sank all the way down and dove for the deepest part of the pool. As she weaved underwater, the muffled sound of a crash reached her. On instinct she picked up her pace, pushing against the water with her legs as she glanced behind.

Kai was right there, diving after her, still dressed in all his clothes.

Laughter escaped her, breaking the water into bubbles before her face. She swam away, twisting out of his reach when he was suddenly too near.

She hadn't been a lifeguard for nothing.

The pool wasn't big enough to keep up the chase long. She used long strokes to glide to the other end, closing her eyes as she used the currents to lead her along. When she neared the edge of the pool she swept her body up, arcing herself to meet the surface.

A hand grabbed her leg, encasing her ankles. She opened her eyes and gasped, forgetting to hold her breath. Long, muscled arms turned her. She would have choked, but then a mouth closed over hers, and she breathed in deeply, taking in oxygen from Kai. His eyes were open, his face so near she could see his lashes flutter as he pulled her nearer.

Her hand found his neck, and wrapped there slowly, to match her legs tangling around his waist. They still shared the same breath, as he swam their bodies to the surface. Steam rose from the bubbling water, cloaking the entire area in mist.

When she pulled back, his eyes remained locked onto her face as he used one arm to keep them tethered to the edge of the pool.

"Still need that rescue breath?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

She shook her head slowly.

"Sure about that?"

She nodded.

His grip tightened, as he dropped his head to rest against hers. She responded by squeezing her legs further around his hips. Something like a rock jutted into her ass. She squirmed into it.

"Bonnie," he breathed. "What're we doing?"

"Acts of felony."

He barked out a choked laugh.

"I'm not on the up and up with Florida. Are they more lenient here?"

"With?"

"You're not even sixteen."

She scraped her nails along the back of his neck, burrowing into his hair, smiling a little when he groaned and leaned into her hand, letting her fingers dig deeper. Of course he'd like that.

"Do you care?" she probed.

He scoffed, pressing a palm against her torso and sliding it up to brush the swell of her breast under her bra. His hand was large, spanning much of her abdomen as he rested it there and his thumb made its now familiar dance across her skin.

"I shouldn't," he muttered. "Wish I didn't."

He didn't know how glad she was to hear that.

"You forgot to take your clothes off, Kai."

"No, I just couldn't wait, Bonnie."

She grabbed his chin to draw him closer, closing her eyes when their mouths met.

His hands tangled in her hair. They drifted back under the water, pushing into each other's bodies as they moved backwards to rest against the pool tiles. Her back hit the wall as he placed a hand against it, driving his hips against hers so his erection kept hitting the crotch of her panties. When she moaned, his mouth swallowed it up.

They could drown here. Anyone could see them. Upstairs was their hostage. If they got caught, shit would hit the fan, and still...she let Kai maintain his hold on her, while her hands landed on his chest. His shirt weaved in the water under her touch, so she slipped them under and found his bare, hard skin. His fingers on her waist clamped harder. Magic bubbled between them. The water responded.

It shouldn't have been possible, but their bodies fought against the pull of gravity. A tide of giddy dizziness in her head matched the roaring in her ears. When she opened her eyes, Kai enveloped her field of vision. He'd taken her face in both his hands as he plundered her mouth. Caught up in the taste of him, she almost missed the way they were near the surface again, even though they hadn't moved.

Soon, their heads broke the surface, while their mouths stayed fused.

"Kai-" she gasped, breaking their kiss. Her legs untangled from his hips.

"Mmf," he grunted, wrapping them back around, squeezing her ankles in his warm hand. "I got it. Quit worrying."

She sighed into another kiss, moaning again when his teeth bit her bottom lip, chiding.

They hadn't risen to the surface, she realized dimly. Their feet were now on the bottom of the pool, as water poured out of the drain in a rush while evaporating around their heads. Kai's tongue swept her mouth, while she used her own to explore. He tasted of coffee and mint chocolate. Had he done that on purpose, expecting to play tonsil hockey with her tonight? But how could he? She'd instigated this.

His hands urged more pressingly on her skin, drifted to her nipples. He pinched them, hard. Her mouth dropped in shock. He used the moment to delve deeper with his tongue, chuckling so that it vibrated against her throat. Then his hand casually flicked her panties aside, right where warm squirmy tightness reigned over her thoughts, and left her heedless of witnesses. But in the thickened fog settling over their heads, she knew being spotted was a long shot.

Kai's finger tapped against her mound.

She stilled, pulling away from the kiss. The most she'd let any other boy go was to play with her breasts, although a few had tried to reach third base. But the only hand that had gotten to know her clit was her own. She grew wetter, watching Kai staring back, his eyes hooded as he slid one long finger inside her.

"Didja know the water matches your eyes?" he asked, tilting his head to study her.

He pumped her languidly, crooking his finger just a little.

Her eyes drifted close, but he stopped them with a harsh kiss, demanding as he sucked on her mouth. "Keep 'em open."

The water was down to the level of their knees now, as they stayed pressed against the pool tile. His hips kept her pinned to the wall, one hand squeezed beneath her ass as his other sank deeper between her legs, when he used a second finger to help stretch her out.

"Oh," she breathed.

"Emerald pools," he ground out, pushing with his hips as he lowered his face against her neck.

She wished he would shut up, but naturally he only leaned in and whispered her name against her ear, over and over, almost like a chant. Then he drove his fingers inside her in a rapid, steady rhythm, and one bumped against this knot, deep inside, robbing her of breath. Her vision went spotty, her stomach tightening with unbearable anticipation.

"Please, just-" she stopped, hazy-brained as her hand tugged on his hair, harsh and wild and lolling his head back. "I-don't-"

"Know what I see in those pools," he whispered, pulling free from her hold to nip under her ear, right before he drew back again and gazed down at her.

Something wild in his eyes called to her, reminded her that as frayed and scattered to pieces as she felt just then-he was much the same. And she had barely touched him. But she remembered, then, the best way to get him back. He wanted to unravel her. She could do the same to him.

"An abomination."

Without warning his hands slid free from between her legs. She almost cried out in protest, until he lifted them up to his mouth, and licked the fingers he'd used to pleasure her. He dragged her mouth to his, stroking forcefully with his tongue so she could taste herself in his kiss.

"My fingers," he said into her mouth. "Inside you. My face in your eyes."

"Kai," she murmured, confused.

She found his hand, battling it as he tried to keep it in place on her face, but she squeezed the bones of his fingers tightly until a crack broke the air. He laughed, sounding both pained and delighted, letting her guide the same hand down, to put his fingers back where they belonged.

They both groaned together when he pumped her again.

All she heard were the soft wet sounds of his hand in her sex, and the hiss of water evaporating in the air. Their magic had drained the pool. At the edge of the fresh crater they'd made, Bonnie let Kai tumble her onto the ground, into a tiny puddle of warm water on her back.

He still wore his clothes, even as he slid over her. His hands slipped under the bra to palm her breast. His touch grew keen, but also less bruising, and her body was pliant under him, rubbing in delicious friction, her bare skin against his damp clothes. The vibration of his magic against hers was a rapid beat that kept time with her heart, pounding between her ribs. Or maybe it was mixed with his. He wrapped another hand around her hair as her own reached down, prodding the tent in his pants.

His voice dropped into a growl. He kissed her again. She took it as invitation to wind her tongue along his. He tensed, then his hands squeezed her hips, clutching desperately, moving around to pull her to him as his hips rolled into hers. Around them the chairs beside the pool scraped the ground on a harsh wind. The lone poolside lamp crackled, sizzling out with a pop. Bonnie cried out in time with Kai's grunts turning hoarse, as he buried himself into her, her body slick against his damp hardness. When he opened her legs wider, she followed suit, but with her mind, and pulled him down to drown with her.

Now she felt what he did-

 _-Her tight core milked his fingers, her gasp turning into a moan. He lost his mind for a second, gripped by his need for more of her, but also of magic, and sharing it, and then naturally, because of what he was-siphoning it._

 _He kept her tightly pressed to him, as he opened their kiss wider and the urge to devour her consumed his thoughts. The burn in his brain worked its way down, to his throat. In seconds, his lips tingled, while her small hands started beating at his chest. He barely registered the cement beneath her cracking, while he stroked his way along her mouth with his tongue-_

Bonnie swatted at his jaw, her mouth seared with pain. Unbidden, tears stung her eyes. Kai, seemingly in a daze, touched one that trickled down her cheek.

"Whoops," he said, a wrinkle forming between his brows.

"You stole it!" she hissed, her fingers on her mouth.

 _-His own held traces of a familiar burn as he gazed back still hazy-headed. He'd siphoned her, without meaning to. With his kiss._

 _She was taking it the wrong way-_

"Why did-ugh, forget it, get off me."

Her lips were puckered up tight, not at all sexy or welcoming she knew, but he worked his hands along her jaw and she felt him feed her back her looted magic. Somewhere in his actions, she tasted hints of remorse. It warmed their bodies, this sharing, and soon had melted some of her fight. He nipped at her mouth in apology, taking a long drag along her bottom lip as he leaned slightly back and tried to explain.

"Bonnie-" he paused, rubbing her shoulder and then swooping his face down to rest on her chest. He kissed the tops of her breasts. She punched his temple, then reared back to try it again, but his hands caught hers, and held them.

"Jackass," she said.

"I goofed."

She pondered that, her mind flickering with what she'd gleaned from his own. It was true. He'd gone on autopilot, his siphoning taking over in a moment of unbridled need.

"I'll make it up to you."

Then he dipped out of sight, splaying her thighs apart, burying his nose where his fingers had just been. Her slit parted under his tongue, slow and laving and hot as it slipped into her folds, bringing her rapidly back to the edge. He was _really_ good at this. She didn't want to explore why, was just glad she'd let him be her first to get to third base. She was desperate to have his tongue shoved deeper, his mouth sucking harder against that nub that went tighter, the pressure radiating around her core.

Her keen moan pierced the thick air around them. He lapped away her protest and any last traces of sanity. She arched up, caught his nose buried deep against her, and then it happened-she came, for the first time, with a man's name spilling out from the back of her throat, and Kai's tongue in place to catch her juices in lazy, long strokes.

 _-No, not a man, an abomination-_

Seconds later, his ragged breathing joined hers. She caught sight of the wet spot across the front of his pants. She'd left the mindlink open. When she reached orgasm, so had he. She fought dueling urges. One to bite her lip and laugh, and the other to fall face first into the puddle of water under her, and wish this had all been just another wet dream of hers, shared with Kai.

But the play of smug on his face chased quickly away by his sheepish grin felt all too real. He didn't move, and neither did she; soon laying on the bottom of the wasted pool, atop the shallow puddle, began to feel normal. Good, even. Better when Kai ran an idle finger across her collarbone, then whispered something barely coherent under his breath.

It would be easy to fall asleep just then.

She closed her eyes, but he nudged her.

"No snoring on the job, Bon."

"What job?"

"Modified cloaking spell for us."

"You said your coven wasn't around."

"Sweet as it is to hear you taking me at my word, think for a sec, Bonnie. Who do we really need to stay off our backs right now?"

His touch glided over her mouth, then he bent to kiss her again.

"Grams," she muttered against his lips.

"Ding ding ding."

He let her push him off as she slid to the side, resting her head on one hand to study him. He lay there, long and lean, an eyeful of damp and cool and satisfied, smirking back at her. A shy smile almost slipped out in response, that she quickly buried.

Did he even know what just happened? In her own head it sounded dumb-sentimental in that trashy romance paperback way-but it meant a lot to her. Even as warped as she now was thanks to their bond, it wasn't everyday she went around letting a boy get a taste of her. Scratch that-a man. Not a boy.

 _-No, not a man. An abomination-_

"Little late, anyway," she said brusquely. "Shouldn't we have cloaked ourselves before-"

"Caving in to your not-so-hidden desire to get frisky with yours truly?" His smirk tilted wider. "Nah. I snuck a blanket sleeping spell in earlier on everybody here, when you first mentioned taking this dip. Think of it as an audience of sleeping beauties surrounding us behind all those curtained windows."

"No, thanks. I'd rather not think about what we just did. Pretty sure it was illegal in most states."

That drew him up, laughing as he sat cross-legged. He gestured to the remains of the pool around them.

"Anyway, we've got a massive circle working in our favor. Who needs chalk or candles, right? Macguyver would know to make the most of this."

His wrist flicked up, sparks shooting out from the shattered pieces of the lamp post. Something on the ground flared in, then out. She fixed her bra and panty back into place, then sat like him and grabbed hold of his wrist. Closing her eyes so he could channel her magic, she willed herself not to shiver when his fingers caressed the back of her hand.

"Stop it, Kai."

"'Kay."

They chanted in tandem, a ring of fire coating the edges of the concrete pool. Bonnie gave into a smile then, letting her magic fully merge with his as they finished casting the spell together.


End file.
